


The Guardian and the Gate

by Marcus_S_Lazarus



Category: Pocket Monsters | Pokemon (Anime), Stargate SG-1
Genre: Crossover
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-09
Updated: 2020-04-09
Packaged: 2021-03-01 18:47:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 16
Words: 38,710
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23561812
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Marcus_S_Lazarus/pseuds/Marcus_S_Lazarus
Summary: A seemingly simple mission to investigate potential strange new sources of power results in SG-1 encountering a world populated by the most remarkable creatures in existence
Comments: 4
Kudos: 20





	1. A Dream of Magical Creatures

**Author's Note:**

> For SG-1, this is set in the first half of Season Seven, after Daniel returned from his time Ascended but before Anubis introduced the Kull Warriors

Ever since his official return to SG-1, the thing that troubled Daniel the most about his Ascension was what he didn't remember.

He had been told that he'd paid brief visits to Jack and Teal'c during that year before the final reunion with the whole team on Abydos, and he guessed that he'd done far more than that over the year, but no matter how hard he tried to strain his memory, he had only remembered that incident when he saw Bra'tac and Ry'ac being captured and nothing else.

He appreciated that he had probably been returned to his human form as a punishment, and he should consider himself lucky that he was able to remember anything considering what they could have done to him, but that didn't change how frustrating it was to have this gap in his memory. Learning had always been his passion, and the knowledge that there was a whole chunk of his life missing was something that continued to trouble him even months after he had returned to the SGC. He was as committed to ensuring Anubis's defeat as the rest of his team, and he'd never jeopardise their chances just to satisfy some personal need, but ever since his session with Teal'c, he spent at least one night a week attempting meditation to unlock further memories.

He had spent the last hour or so sitting on his bed to try and find any further memories, but when this private session concluded with no more stirring of memory than any other attempt since the mission to Erebus, Daniel gave up for the night and settled into bed…

* * *

 _He was looking down at a vast planet, from a perspective that was just about acceptable in dreams but would have completely baffled the conscious mind. The cities of the planet below were much like what he was familiar with from Earth, but a casual closer glance at each made the differences clear. No matter what city he tried to focus on, the streets were always filled with people and small groups of strange animals, ranging from large rats, cats or dogs, to creatures he would have been prepared to swear were some kind of dragon._  
  
 _He was trying to take a closer look at the cities when he felt his view shift, moving from the heart of the cities to spread across the world. He saw even more creatures walking alongside humans as he moved, with further creatures playing and fighting in the wild, but his senses soon drove him towards a few key figures._  
  
 _He didn't know what was so significant about these creatures in particular, apart from the fact that he never saw more than one of them where other creatures existed in their multitudes, but he soon found himself watching three large creatures that tentatively reminded him of dogs running through fields…_  
  
 _Three small blue creatures literally floated above three different lakes…_  
  
 _Four large figures that almost seemed to be made of stone were stomping through mountains…_  
  
 _Seven awe-inspiring birds, two of which looked particularly similar to each other, flew through the sky…_  
  
 _A long green Chinese-style dragon flew through the upper atmosphere…_  
  
 _A large red creature slumbered in a volcano…_  
  
 _A creature resembling a long-flippered whale rested at the bottom of the sea…_  
  
 _Three creatures flew through stormy skies, resembling men with clouds for legs…_  
  
 _Four strange creatures ran through the fields, one of them particularly fat but all looking like horses to some degree…_  
  
 _A large blue creature that put him in mind of a stag with rainbow-coloured antlers…_  
  
 _As these and further, less comprehensible images flew past his eyes, there was a sudden flash of intense white and Daniel found himself staring at a DHD as six chevrons lit up, displaying a clear and unmistakeable gate address that he had never seen before, only for the view to vanish as a white glow filled his vision._  
  
 _As the white glow intensified, Daniel squinted against the glare, before it dimmed to a more tolerable level. Looking ahead, Daniel was surprised to find himself facing a creature that he could only think of as a giant llama with a golden ring around its waist, staring at him with a surprisingly solemn glare for something he couldn't help but think of as just an animal._  
  
" _She will come to claim the birds," the llama 'said'; its lips didn't move, but Daniel somehow knew that the creature was speaking for itself, rather than something speaking through it. "You_ must _protect my fellow magical creatures."_  
  
" _Magical… creatures?" Daniel repeated, looking uncertainly at the figure. "What-?"_  
  
 _For a moment, everything blurred again before he was hovering over a sizeable archipelago of differently-sized islands, some densely populated for their size and the others basically deserted, before his gaze was focused on a collection of four islands in the centre of this archipelago, one large island and three smaller ones forming a shape that reminded him of a paw. Just as he registered its shape, he was suddenly turned around to face up to the sky, in time to see a ha'tak emerge from the clouds_ -

* * *

Sitting sharply up in bed, Daniel could only gasp and look around himself before he calmed down, the shock of that strange dream fading as he reminded himself of the facts.  
  
"It's just a dream…" he told himself, settling back down in bed. "A very _weird_ dream… but just a dream…"  
  
Maybe he should give up on meditation as a possible solution to his memory issues; an open mind was one thing, but if he started seeing things like that he had more problems than he thought.  
  
 _What kind of planet would have all those creatures?_  
  
Then again, that gate address was a bit too specific for it to be some random dream…  
  
SG-1 already had a mission scheduled for the morning, but Daniel made a note to check the database for anything similar to that planet's address once he was back from the mission to work out where it was…


	2. A Mission Like None Other

"So," Jack looked curiously at Sam as SG-1 sat in the briefing room, "this Stargate's on an island?"

"One of a sizeable archipelago, from what the aerial drones saw," Sam confirmed. "The island with the Stargate itself isn't populated, but there appears to be a city of some kind on the largest nearby island, and there were signs of similar habitations on some of the other nearby islands. The drones weren't able to get in close enough to take a more accurate observation in case the natives noticed before we were ready to make contact, but there was an interesting underwater current very close to the islands, and the drone's sensors also detected… well, some very interesting energy sources."

"Interesting energy sources?" General Hammond repeated curiously. "Interesting in what way?"

"Interesting in the sense that they were… mobile," Sam replied, shaking her head uncertainly. "Whatever these sources are, they're capable of independent motion around these three islands; one of them located around the island with the 'gate on it is giving off a great deal of heat, and there's another one on a nearby island that seems to be generating a large amount of electrical energy, but there's a third source that almost seems to be giving off cold energy."

"Cold energy?" Jack repeated curiously. "Are we talking cold fusion here?"

"What is cold fusion?" Teal'c asked.

"A theoretical nuclear reaction that could be triggered at room temperature rather than the usual extreme heat," Sam explained. "In any case, an energy sink might be a more appropriate term for what we're picking up here, as cold would be traditionally more about the absence of energy, and this source seems to be taking it in."

"Taking it in?" Daniel asked.

"I'm not sure how else to explain it; that cold source is… well, it's not like anything I've seen before," Sam explained, shaking her head thoughtfully before she focused on General Hammond. "Whatever's causing them, considering the scale of these energy sources based on a cursory assessment with our standard drone, the possibilities are still worth following up with a more detailed assessment. I'm not sure what it is, but we lose nothing by going there to take a look; at the very least, we might get some interesting ideas about how to develop similar energy sources ourselves."

"…Very well," Hammond nodded after a moment's thought. "SG-1, you have a go."

* * *

"Just to check," Jack looked over at Sam as the four-man team moved into position in front of the dialling Stargate, the FRED behind them loaded with the scanning equipment Sam had selected for this particular mission, "if the Stargate's on an island, how are we going to get around to the rest of this place once we get there?"  
  
"We can at least get to this planet and see what our options are," Sam said. "The drones confirmed that the largest island of the four in the immediate area had strong signs of human habitation, so we might be able to send up a signal to attract attention if there's nobody on the island when we get there."  
  
"And if nothing else, we might be able to take a look at the energy source on the island itself," Daniel noted, just as the Stargate finished dialling, the familiar kawoosh emerging from the Stargate before the gate's interior circle settled into its traditional image of an upright pool of water. "This is the island with the great heat source, right?"  
  
"Right," Sam nodded. "It's the most straightforward of the three in the area, but we might still get some ideas for what the other two might be."  
  
"Well," Jack said as he glanced around at his team, "let's see what we've got, shall we?"

* * *

As soon as they stepped out of the Stargate, Daniel's glasses were drenched and the rest of the team found themselves squinting in the rain, the new arrivals suddenly struck by the storm that had broken out around them. A quick glance around was all that Sam needed to confirm that they were in the small cove that was the location for the Stargate on this planet, surrounded by steep walls on all sides apart from one small flight of stairs in one corner, but the thick dark clouds above them detracted from the current view even if they didn't have to worry about the rain as well.  
  
"Right," Jack said, looking back at Sam. "You couldn't have mentioned the storm?"  
  
"Was there any indication of this weather during our latest drone reconnaissance?"  
  
"No," Sam said, eyes narrowing uncertainly as she looked up at the sky. "We only sent the drone yesterday; there should be no way for the weather to change this fast under normal circumstances…"  
  
"And what about this?" Daniel called over. Glancing in the archaeologist's direction, Jack was surprised to see that the DHD and the Stargate had surprisingly thick layers of ice around them both. It wasn't as bad as the Stargate he and Carter had found in Antarctic, but considering that this was meant to be a tropical region, the fact that there was any ice here at all raised questions.  
  
"Strange," Sam noted, studying the pattern of the ice. "If this wasn't so big, I'd wonder if it was… unnatural…"  
  
Her teammates looked at her for a few moments, but when Sam shook her head and looked back at the three men, it was clear that she was just as baffled as they were about the inexplicable ice pattern.  
  
"Well," Jack shrugged, lost for anything better to do in this situation, "whether or not this storm came in a bit too fast or there's any strange ice to take into account, we can't exactly do anything about either, so I say we try and check out that power source you detected and work out our next move from there. Recommendations?"  
  
"The centre of the island," Sam said after a moment's thought. "Whatever it was, all three power sources generally seemed to stay around the centre of their respective islands during our surveys; even if it isn't there now, we might be able to find a clue as to what it is."  
  
"Check," Jack nodded, as Teal'c picked up the primary scanning equipment, Carter studying the hand-held scanner for a moment before putting it back on the main box and indicating a rough path up a nearby hill.  
  
"That way," she said. "There's no sign of the larger power source in itself, but there's something this way that has similar energy traces."  
  
"Could it be connected to it?" Daniel asked, as they began to walk up the hill. "I mean, you said the power source you detected was mobile; maybe this one is like its… charger or something?"  
  
"That's… not the worst theory, certainly," Sam noted thoughtfully, before winching as the wind increased around them. "And now that I think about it, maybe this wind has something to do with whatever those energy sources are; a civilization that can produce those could have all kinds of other resources…"  
  
"Weather control?" Jack asked. "Seriously?"  
  
"It's not exactly control; that would imply they can make it better and worse, rather than just making it worse," Sam explained, looking uncertainly up at the sky. "It's too early to be sure, of course, but we might have a better idea what we're dealing with once we find what we're looking for…"  
  
"All the more reason to keep going," Jack nodded firmly as they proceeded up the hill. Jack's cap blew off when they were about halfway up, but he didn't bother trying to catch it; he was always so-so about hats as part of his uniform, and in this case he didn't really need it since he wasn't faced with the sunshine he'd expected.  
  
As they finally reached the top of the hill, SG-1 found themselves staring down into a large crater of an unusual formation. Half of the crater's floor was stone, with a small flight of stairs at the other end, but the other half seemed to be a large gap, with what could be steam completely concealing whatever was on that side of the crater. The most surprising thing about the crater was the small building standing at the middle of the crater, practically on the edge of the stone floor before the mist effect took precedence, even if SG-1 couldn't see much of the construction from this angle.  
  
"OK," Jack said, glancing back at the team as he indicated the small building in the middle, "maybe we've been doing this so long I'm thinking in as many clichés as the bad guys, but what are the odds that thing's important?"  
  
"Probably," Sam confirmed, squinting against the rain as she grabbed the scanner from Teal'c's back to take another check of the readings. "I'm not sure how or why, but there's definitely _something_ in that shrine that's linked to the power source we came here to track."  
  
"Well," Daniel added, looking at the rest of the team, "even if it's not the power source we're looking for, it has to be worth a look for the social value, right? Maybe we can get a better idea of what this society actually worshipped, even if we can't find the main power source."  
  
"Why not?" Jack said. "Gets us out of this wind, anyway."  
  
Taking a glance around the crater, the team soon round the nearest rough part of the wall and carefully made their way down the sides to the floor of the crater, Teal'c keeping the scanner on his back while Daniel used Teal'c's staff to knock a few suitable footholes in the rock below them. The wind was still intense, but the crater shielded them from the worst of it, making their descent uncomfortable rather than cold. As they reached the bottom, Sam had just taken the scanner from Teal'c's equipment to examine the small construction more closely, when a strange sound came from the stairs at the outer edge of the crater. The team turned around to take in the source of the noise, Daniel just about to begin his usual introduction, but the words died in his throat as the four of them stared at the small creature that had just entered the crater and was now looking at them with undeniable curiosity.  
  
"Carter," Jack said, after a moment's pause as the team took in the creature. "Is that or is that not a giant yellow mouse staring at me?"  
  
"Pika?" the creature said, tilting its head as it looked back at Jack.  
  
Staring at the creature, which indeed resembled a large, slightly fat, yellow mouse, apart from its black-tipped pointed ears and lightning-bolt-like tail, Daniel noted that at least he didn't have to worry about finding that planet he'd been dreaming about the night before. It was hard to be certain amid all the other creatures he'd seen in that dream, but he was fairly sure this creature had been one of the many he'd seen walking about on that planet.  
  
 _Why do I suddenly think that dream wasn't a coincidence?_


	3. The Thunderbird

The sound of footsteps from the stairs prompted the yellow mouse to run on towards the stone building at the end of the rock outcropping behind them. Glancing after the mouse to take in the small stone structure more clearly for the first time, Daniel noted that the construction resembled a small temple, with a figure in the centre that put him in mind of a phoenix, as it resembled a bird surrounded by flames with some kind of glowing red orb in its beak.

Daniel had just started to walk towards the altar to examine it more closely, when the sound of more footsteps on the stairs prompted SG-1 to turn back in that direction, weapons raised enough to be ready without appearing threatening, only to be surprised when the source of the footsteps came over the top of the ridge to reveal itself as a young boy, apparently in his early teens at best, wearing a short-sleeved blue jacket with white sleeves over a black T-shirt, blue trousers, and a red-and-white cap.

"OK," Jack said, lowering his gun as soon as he registered the boy standing before them. "I was _not_ expecting that…"

"Are you… part of the ceremony?" the boy asked, looking in confusion between the four SG-1 members.

"Ceremony?" Teal'c repeated curiously.

"No, we only just got here," Daniel cut in, stepping forward to smile at the boy. "I'm Doctor Daniel Jackson; who are you?"

"Uh… Ash Ketchum of Pallet Town," the boy said, before a loud call came from the electric mouse-thing behind them. Turning around, SG-1 saw that the mouse was now perched on top of the bird statue in the middle of the shrine, calling 'Pika!' as it patted the beak with one paw.

"The ancient sphere…" the just-named Ash said, initial confusion at SG-1's presence forgotten as he hurried past them to the shrine.

"OK," Jack said, looking after the boy in confusion before turning back to Daniel. "This ring any bells, Danny?"

"I… don't know," Daniel shook his head as he stared at where the boy was now trying to pull the sphere out of the bird's beak. "I mean, there are obviously cultures where children are required to go on various quests and trials to prove themselves as men, but his clothing doesn't help me work out what one might have inspired this civilisation, and then there's the mouse to take into account…"

"And what about the bird in that statue?" Sam asked, looking back at where the boy had just pulled out the strange sphere, which was now glowing a brilliant orange before he put it in his pocket. "I thought it might be a phoenix, but…"

"Guess who, Pikachu?" another voice said. Turning back to the stares, SG-1 were left further confused when they saw a young man and a young woman, the woman with outrageously long red hair in a white miniskirt and long black gloves and boots and the man with literally blue hair in shorter gloves and boots, each wearing a white shirt with a big red R on the front. The source of the voice, however, was apparently the small cat-thing between them, standing on its hind legs and looking at the mouse with an actual smirk.

"Prepare for trouble!" the woman began.

"And make it double!" the man continued.

"Can we do this later?" the boy who was apparently Ash said, looking indignantly at the two speakers as he turned away from the shrine, the yellow mouse leaping up to his shoulder. "I'm in a hurry here, and this weather's already bad!"

"It has been bad," the woman said with a smug smirk. "Isn't that always our luck? But our luck's changed, and our ship has finally come in."

"Your luck's changed?" Daniel cut in, looking at them in confusion. "Who are you?"

"Who are _you_?" the woman looked sharply at Daniel, as though only just registering that SG-1 were there.

"And if we're asking each other questions," Jack put in, "why does your cat talk?"

"Cat?" the cat-thing said. "I happen to be _Meowth_ -!"

Jack was saved from asking further questions when there was a loud noise from the top of the stairs behind the two new arrivals, followed by what seemed to be a leisure boat from back on Earth suddenly flying up the stairs behind them. As it hovered in the air for a moment, Jack just had time to see that it was apparently being held up by the sail and wondered how heavy the wind here was to do something like that, before it crashed down the stairs, the three new arrivals running to the side before it could hit them.

"This mission has taken a distinctly strange turn," Teal'c noted, as the ship's small 'crew' looked out from the upper deck as the sail retracted back into the mast; one young woman in a white dress with long brown hair under a small orange hat, a slightly older girl with short red hair in a side-ponytail wearing a pink-and-blue jacket and extremely short shorts holding a small egg-like creature, and a taller boy with dark hair and a red headband in a short-sleeved green top and red shorts.

"Well, I hope you're happy, Mr Hero!" the brown-haired girl said, glaring at Ash as the boy waved awkwardly at SG-1's first human contact on this planet. "If you'd just listened to me in the first place and stayed at the party like I told you to, we wouldn't be stranded here on this island."

"Welcome to my world," the redhead said with a sense of resigned exasperation, after the egg thing nearly jumped out of her arms while saying something like 'Toki'. "I have to deal with his stubborn attitude every single day."

"Oh, you'll get used to it," the brown-haired girl smiled at her companion as the mast folded into the boat. "It's just something you'll need to work on when the two of you get married."

"Take that back!" the redhead said. For a moment, Jack thought about asking Daniel if youthful marriages were a thing in any culture that might involve this ritual, but decided to just treat it as a joke he didn't get.  
  
"Listen to me, kid," the long-haired redhead said, sitting up from where she had fallen to look firmly at the girl, the blue-haired man and the cat-thing draped over nearby rocks. "When you get involved with the opposite sex, you're only asking for trouble."  
  
"Yes," the blue-haired man added with a grin. "And that's the kind of trouble I stay out of."

"Youse guys don't need the opposite sex, cause you've got each other," the cat-thing noted with a brief shrug.  
  
"What does that mean?" the woman glared at the cat-thing as it laughed.  
  
"OK!" Jack called out, drawing attention back to the members of SG-1. "Can someone _please_ tell me what's-"  
  
The sudden crackle of lightning from over the edge of the crater quickly drew everyone's attention. For a moment Jack wondered if this was foreshadowing a storm, but he quickly re-evaluated that when a creature that looked for all the world like a massive yellow hummingbird flew into the crater, wings beating slowly even as it crackled with intense electricity. As lightning-bolts struck the ground, those not already in the boat quickly ran to it for shelter, Teal'c and Daniel on the same side as the two in white and their cat-thing while Jack and Sam were on the same side as the boy and the mouse.  
  
"Pikachu," the boy said, looking at the bird in awe as it flew over the crater, "it's Zapdos."  
  
"Zapdos?" Jack asked, looking at the kid in surprise. "You know what that thing is?"  
  
"The Legendary Electric Bird," Ash explained, turning to face Jack in confusion as lightning from the bird struck some of the larger stones around the crater, causing them to briefly glow blue. "You don't know about it?"  
  
"Kid, we don't even know what the giant mouseis!" Jack said, indicating the mouse on the boy's shoulder, which looked at Jack in surprise before it seemed to come to a decision, leaping from the boy's shoulder to run to the bow of the crashed boat, closing its eyes, and generating a burst of electricity towards the bird.  
  
"What?" Sam looked at the mouse in shock, as the bird fired another blast of electricity at it, knocking it back as Ash yelled something about 'Pikachu' (Jack wondered if that was the thing's name, and if so where it had come by something like that).  
  
"So," Jack mused, as he and Sam hurried to the other side of the boat to join the rest of the team, "a mouse and a bird that can throw lightning bolts, and a talking cat that apparently calls itself a Meowth; anyone heard about something like this?"  
  
"Hard to say," Daniel said, looking uncertainly at the bird as it settled on top of the shrine, the crater glowing a strange blue as electricity crackled around it. "I can't be sure about the other two, but as far as that… as far as Zapdos goes, I'd be inclined to think of the North American Thunderbird for obvious reasons, although I don't think that it was ever intended to look like _that_ …"  
  
"OK, mythological questions aside, any idea why… _this_ happened?" Jack asked, waving a hand to indicate the strange blue-ness that had just settled over the crater, accompanied by a strange sensation that reminded him of some weird combination of the wind and water as it exerted a faint pressure against him.  
  
"And how can the mouse attack it like that?" Sam asked, as the mouse moved back to the front of the boat to continue firing smaller lightning-bolts at the bird.  
  
"Those aren't attacks," the cat-thing said. "Pikachu's tryin' ta talk to Zapdos!"  
  
"Talk to it?" Daniel looked at the cat in surprise. "They're talking? And you can understand it?"  
  
"Can't speak it, obviously, but I'm a Pokemon; I can understand _anything_ we're saying ta each other," the cat-thing said, looking anxiously at the bird and the mouse as they fired more lightning bolts at each other. "Pikachu's sayin' 'What are you doin' over here on Fire Island, Zapdos, and where's Moltres?'"  
  
"Good questions," the older redhead noted, as the small mouse's latest attack triggered what Jack could only think of as an electric force field crackling around the bird as it perched on the shrine, now looking like a long-beaked eagle or a short-legged heron rather than the hummingbird it had reminded him of before. Lost for anything better to do in a situation this confusing, Jack could only watch in silence as the electric bird turned to fire another burst of electricity at the mouse, even if the mouse seemed content to just take this blast rather than being knocked back like it had been the last couple of times it was hit by something.  
  
"Now Zapdos is sayin' 'Moltres used to rule here'," the cat-thing explained (And Jack was _not_ thinking about the fact that he was relying on a _cat_ to translate for him), as the massive bird spread its wings while lightning crackled around it. "'But now dat Moltres is gone, Lightnin' shall rule over Fire, and I claim this island as my own from this day forward'… Huh; I guess Moltres flew da coop."  
  
"Moltres?" Sam asked.  
  
"Would that be… the bird depicted in the shrine?" Daniel asked, indicating the stone bird statue below Zapdos' feet.  
  
"Probably," the dark-haired young man in the boat looked thoughtfully at the shrine, reaching into his pocket to pull out a pair of binoculars and examine it more closely. "Those do look like flames around it, and Moltres _is_ the Legendary Bird of Fire… and why don't you know this?"  
  
"Ah," Jack said; this wasn't the best time for a revelation like this, but it wasn't like he was ever going to get a perfect moment in a situation this confusing. "That's-"  
  
Further explanation was cut short as Zapdos let out another screech, causing the electricity it was generating to increase in intensity and fill the surrounding crater. Jack was just about to ask Carter for ideas regarding their next move when the lightning that had previously been spread around the crater was suddenly drawn upwards, the bird turning to look as the blue glow in the crater faded while a large object filled the sky.  
  
"A ha'tak," Teal'c noted, staring grimly at the thing now descending from the clouds that had gathered above the island.  
  
"Oh, _that's_ an encouraging turn of events," Jack groaned.  
  
"A what?" the redhead looked sharply at Jack. "You know what that-?"  
  
Jack was saved from further explanation when strange square electric things appeared in the sky, flying towards Zapdos as it glared defensively up at the ship. Glancing around at the rest of the people in the crater, Jack noted that the children were looking anxiously at the ha'tak, clearly confused about what it was, while the older two in white were holding onto each other with clear panic on their faces. As the electricity from Zapdos died down, the bird panted as it stared up at the ship, before taking to the sky as a series of what Jack could only think of as flying squares emerged from a hatch in the bottom of the ship.  
  
"What the _Hell_?" Jack asked, only for his question to answer itself as the square things not only showed a surprising amount of manoeuvrability for their strange shape, but also generated their own power. For a moment, two of them positioned on either side of Zapdos to generate blue electricity, but a quick blast from Zapdos drove the things away before whatever field they were trying to create could finish its work. Even as he desperately scanned the surroundings for some idea of what to do next, Jack only just managed to duck as Zapdos dived down towards the boat before flying upwards once more, but cursed his mistake when he realised that two other square things had just taken up position on either side of the boat where his team and their new acquaintances were standing. Jack barely had time to call out an order to Carter before the squares generated more blue lightning and suddenly the boat and everyone around it were being lifted into the air, rapidly ascending towards the ha'tak above them before Carter could tell Jack what to shoot at.  
  
 _Crap_ , Jack noted, as a quick glance revealed that not only had 'Zapdos'- whatever it was- been trapped in a diamond-style cage formed by two more of the square things, but the boat and everyone around it was already too high up for any of them to get down safely.  
  
"Stay alert!" he yelled over at his team, praying that these kids weren't going to start asking who put him in charge or something stupid like that. "If we don't provoke them, these guys might just leave us alone!"  
  
"'These guys'?" the redhead with the egg-thing looked over at Jack in confusion, as the boat ascended into a hanger at the bottom of the ha'tak after Zapdos. "You mean you know where this… _thing_ comes from?"  
  
"Indeed," Teal'c said, the Jaffa as calm as ever, just before the power to their 'cage' was abruptly cut short, the boat and the people around it abruptly dropping to the floor. Jack was about to get back to his feet when he registered the sound of multiple staff weapons opening around him, looking up to see a variety of Jaffa glaring warningly at the assembled humans.  
  
Checking their foreheads, Jack confirmed that at least the flame-like symbol wasn't one he'd ever seen before so at least they weren't going to have unpleasant reunions on top of anything else, but that just meant that whatever the Goa'uld was going to do to them wasn't going to get personal.  
  
 _Still got no idea what's going on here_ , he thought to himself, as the rest of his team uncomfortably surrendered their weapons at staffpoint, _but at least we're back to the kind of threat we're familiar with_ …  
  
Right now, the biggest question facing him was what an unknown Goa'uld was doing trying to capture some kind of local legendary animal…?


	4. The Gods and the Gates

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just to get this out of the way, I'm not going to have Jessie and James even try to do their motto when they're introducing themselves later; the way I see it, being faced with the likes of Jack and Teal'c, combined with them being stuck on a ship they never could have imagined ever existed crewed by beings who give off a distinctly non-human sense, would probably convince even those two to take things 'seriously' for the immediate moment and save the motto for a less tense situation

Looking around at the room they'd been taken to, Daniel wondered what it said about this Goa'uld that they had stuck everyone taken from the island in what appeared to be their trophy room. The mysterious electrical bird that had been captured earlier was now screeching in defiance in the diamond-shaped cage on their left, and a large yellow bird that literally seemed to have flames on its wings and head seemed to be slumbering or unconscious in a spherical cage to the right. He and the rest of SG-1 were currently immobilised behind a force field 'tube' off to one side of the birds, while the other 'abduction victims' were in a similar 'tube' to the right, but apart from these this room's only furniture was a few tables scattered around the area, some of them displaying artefacts he couldn't quite make out. The nearest artefact display contained a large grey tablet with something written on it that looked vaguely familiar, but Daniel was going to need to wait until he was closer to it to find out what it was.

"Zapdos and Moltres," the dark-haired boy in the green shirt said from the other cage, looking between the two trapped birds in awe.

"Moltres?" Jack asked, looking at the unfamiliar bird for a moment before glancing over at Daniel. "Familiar?"

"I'm thinking a phoenix, but I wouldn't like to swear to anything…" Daniel noted uncertainly.

"OK," the younger red-haired girl said, looking uncertainly over at SG-1 as she indicated the Jaffa, "I get that this is probably a _very_ dangerous situation, but I don't suppose you could tell us anything about who these people actually _are_?"

"We're kind of working on that ourselves," Jack noted, looking over at the table where their captors had placed the team's weapons upon arrival, before turning around to face his own Jaffa ally. "T? Ideas?"

"I have some, O'Neill, and they are not encouraging," Teal'c replied. "I believe that the flame sigil worn by these Jaffa is the symbol of Hestia."

"Hestia?"

"The Greek goddess of home and the hearth," Daniel put in. "She was one of the original six Greek gods, along with Hades, Poseidon, Demeter, Hera and Zeus, and was actually meant to be the first of them born to their father Cronus, but she's also the god who has the smallest role in any mythologies I've read."

"In other words, a Goa'uld who got little press back home," Jack noted. "Take it we can't assume that means she's satisfied being low-key?"

"On the contrary," Teal'c put in grimly. "According to the tales told to me by Master Bra'tac, Hestia was a Goa'uld of particular intellect and guile, even if she lacked the large-scale tactical expertise to put those abilities to practical use in conflict with other System Lords. It has been many years since she was active in the galaxy, but there have been many rumours that Hestia discovered a laboratory with information about certain worlds that had been of key interest to the Gate-builders in the past."

"She knew about the Ancients?" Sam asked.

"It was speculation; for obvious reasons these tales were not well-circulated throughout the territories of the other System Lords-"

"Hey!" a voice called from the other cage. Looking over at their fellow captives, SG-1 noted that the two figures in white were looking at them in particular frustration while the younger ones just looked confused.

"I appreciate liking to show that you're smart," the long-red-haired woman said, looking impatiently at the team, "but if you know _anything_ about these _freaks_ who captured us, is there any chance you could tell the rest of us _anything_ we could understand?"

"That's-" Daniel began, before a door in an upper part of the room opened and a figure emerged who could only be Hestia. As with most female Goa'uld, she wore an elegant dress, but where most of her ilk dressed up in elaborate clothing without any real thought to practicality, her dress was sleeveless and fairly short, only coming down to just above her knees while also being loose enough to allow her to run if required. The black boots she wore with the dress added to the intimidating look, and she wore a pair of long dark gloves, with close-cropped black hair pulled back in a manner that made Jack think of a dominatrix or the kind of scientist who'd kill people with a new poison just to see how long it took them to die.

"Well well," the woman said, looking at SG-1 with a satisfied smirk. "I come here to claim the legendary birds, and I capture the _shol'va_ and his associates into the bargain."

"Hold on; we're just T's _associates_?" Jack cut in, smirking back at the woman who had to be Hestia. "I mean, I like the guy, but he's not the one who blew up a sun."

" _What_?" the group in the other cage yelled.

"You would do well not to mock me, Tau'ri," Hestia said, her eyes flashing as she walked up to the cage holding SG-1, ignoring the other cage. "I do not deny you have had some fortune with those who think of little more than the number of weapons required to slay you once they have you in their power, but I am used to more… sophisticated methods of eliminating those who displease me."

"Which has what to do with setting up your own private aviary?"

"Hardly something so mundane," Hestia said, walking over to place a hand close to the cage holding the still form of Moltres, smiling almost wistfully at the bird. "I have devoted a great deal of time and effort to the acquisition of these two, but once I have claimed the third titan… then the _real_ prize will present itself."

"Real prize?" Jack asked.

"Third titan?" Daniel heard the brunette in the other cage say, glancing over to see that the girl was looking uncertainly at the tablet between the cages.

"In the meantime, I must give myself time to consider the best way to deal with you as an example to my brethren," Hestia mused, turning to walk back up the stairs, pausing as she reached the top to look back at them with a sadistic grin. "Of course, I will not be so cruel as to leave you completely confined until then; you may feel free to… peruse my collection."

With those words, there was a brief flare of energy around the prisoners before that same energy seemed to lower to the ground, releasing the two groups of humans from their 'cell' as Hestia left the room. Jack immediately ran for the container holding their weapons while the kid in green ran for the door, but it quickly became clear that their weapons and the door were both useless to them right now.

"Damnit," Jack said, glancing back at his team after trying and failing to get his weapons back. "I'll give that snake credit; she's more willing to use the smaller kinds of sadistic torture than they usually are."

"Smaller kinds of sadistic torture?" the blue-haired man asked in surprise.

"Well, all she's done is lock up the weapons behind a forcefield we can't get through right now," Jack shrugged. "It's annoying, and psychologically frustrating if we're stuck here for too long, but it could have been worse. Last time I was held captive by one of these guys, the bastard tortured me to death for a few days before I was rescued, and he'd established I didn't know what he was really after on the first day."

"You were… tortured to _death_?" the shorter red-haired girl asked, looking at Jack with a new sense of apprehension.

"Long story," Jack shrugged, before looking over at the boy in green. "Take it that door's locked?"

"There's some kind of… energy shield between me and it?" the boy in green said uncertainly. "It's like a Light Screen attack or something, but-"

"Light Screen?" Jack cut in. "That's an _attack_?"

"Maybe we should start this over again and introduce ourselves before everyone gets even more confused about what's going on?" Daniel cut in, looking over at the six younger people with his usual diplomatic smile. "Hi, I'm Doctor Daniel Jackson; this is Colonel Jack O'Neill, Major Samantha Carter, and Teal'c. We're part of a team; we came here through the Stargate."

"Stargate?" the boy with the yellow mouse asked.

"Chappai'ai?" Daniel asked. "Astra Portia? The Ring of… some kind of god?"

"Are you talking about the Circle of Arceus?" the brown-haired girl asked, looking at the archaeologist in surprise. "Back on Fire Island?"

"If that's where we were captured, then yes," Daniel nodded at the girl.

"But that's-"

"Just some artefact?" Jack finished for her with a smile. "Nah, there's more to it than that, believe me."

"Hold on; Hestia mentioned a third 'titan', and she's captured these two already…" Sam said, looking at the two birds for a moment before looking back at the brown-haired girl. "Is there a third bird like these two that happens to have some kind of ice power?"

"You mean Articuno?" the girl asked.

"If that's what you call it," Sam nodded.

"Ice power?" Jack looking at his second-in-command in surprise.

"You remember those energy sources we came here to investigate, sir?" Sam explained. "I obviously can't be sure without my equipment, but based on the readings I took before we were captured… I think that these three birds are the energy source we were looking for."

"Birds," Jack looked at Sam in his typical blank surprise. "You seriously think that _birds_ were responsible for those kind of energy readings."

"I can see how these two represent the heat and electrical energy sources we came here to find, but… ice?" Daniel asked.

"You have to remember that the third energy source I detected was more accurately an energy _sink_ , meaning that it absorbed energy into itself where the other two generated it," Sam explained. "Theoretically, such an energy source could essentially be perceived as generating extreme cold if the third bird is anything like these two, even if I have no idea how that could work on a biological level…"

"Uh, excuse me?" the boy with the yellow mouse on his shoulder said, looking at SG-1 with a kind of awkward impatience in his stare. "I get that there's probably a lot going on here that we don't understand yet, but… look, maybe we could tell you who we are and then we can work together to clear up what's going on here?"

"Seems fair," Jack nodded at the kid. "So you are?"

"Ash Ketchum; I'm from Pallet Town," the boy said, before indicating the mouse on his shoulder. "And this is my partner Pikachu."

"Pi-Pikachu," the mouse said, smiling at SG-1.

"I'm Misty, and this is Togepi," the younger redhead added, indicating the small egg in her arms.

"Togi-Togi-Prii," the egg smiled, waving its own stubby little arms as it smiled at them.

"I'm Tracey," the boy in green said, walking back down to the main level and smiling at them.

"Melody," the brunette nodded.

"And I'm Jessie, this is James, and that's Meowth," the older redhead put in, practically dashing over to smile at Jack as she indicated her associates before her expression became more serious. "Now, who _are_ these people who've captured us?"

"They're Goa'uld," Jack replied, deciding to cut to the chase and take it from there.

"Goa-what?" Ash asked.

"You've never heard that term before?" Daniel looked at the boy in surprise.

"Should we?" Misty asked.

"That's… complicated," Daniel explained, looking uncertainly at the rest of SG-1 for a moment before he came to a decision. "Basically, they're aliens."

" _Aliens_?" all six of their new acquaintances said simultaneously.

"Pika-ka?" the yellow mouse said (Daniel was definitely going to pay close attention to that mouse; the more it spoke, the more he got the impression that there was some kind of language behind that repetition).

"Bu-but they- they're human!" the blue-haired man protested. "I mean, she had a weird voice, but she _looked_ human!"

"That is only an accurate description up to a certain point," Teal'c put in. "The Jaffa that serve her were originally of human stock, but they have been bred to serve the Goa'uld as soldiers, possessing enhanced strength and endurance, among other physical improvements. The Hestia that you have seen so far is essentially human, but she is under the control of the Goa'uld which chose that body as its host."

"Host?" Tracey asked. "You mean… Hestia is like a ghost Pokemon?"

"Ghost?" Jack repeated, deciding to leave the second word alone for the moment.

"Not… exactly," Daniel said. "Basically, in their natural state the Goa'uld is essentially a snake or eel-like creature, but if it gets the chance, it can…"

"They enter a human- normally through the mouth or the back of the neck- wrap themselves around your spine, and then take control of your brain," Jack finished for his friend.

"They control your _brain_?" Ash asked, looking at them in shock.

"Wait a minute; what was all that you were saying earlier about… Hestia… being a god?" Misty asked, looking apprehensively between SG-1.

"It's part of their propaganda," Sam explained. "The Goa'uld rule several planets, and they make sure that they stay in power by keeping the human populations at a lower technological level and using their own technology to create the impression that they're gods."

" _Several_?" Ash cut in.

"How can there be humans on other worlds?" Tracey asked.

"Long story," Jack cut in, shooting a warning glance at Daniel; this wasn't the time to start a potentially complicated argument about where humanity had originated from. "Point is, we're thinking your planet got lucky and got left alone by the bigger snakes because you're fairly far on the outer rim of the galaxy, so you're not in a place where people could just drop in on you, which is particularly good for you if that boat we saw is anything to go by."

"What?" Melody asked, looking over at SG-1 in surprise. "What does my boat have to do with anything?"

"The Goa'uld typically don't let their planets advance to the point where the humans they rule can create something like that," Sam clarified. "If a Goa'uld came here in force, they'd make it an immediate point to destroy you, because you're so technologically advanced that you'd never believe they were gods."

"Hold on…" Ash asked, holding up a hand as he looked uncertainly between SG-1. "If we're… well, if we're meant to be far away from where these Goa'uld live, what's Hestia doing here… and how did you get here?"

"That's where the… Circle of Arceus comes in," Daniel explained. "Basically it's what we call a 'Stargate', and it was created several million years ago, by the race we know as 'the Ancients'."

"Stargate?" Tracey asked. "What does it do?"

"Basically, if we dial a specific set of symbols on it, representing constellations in different parts of the galaxy, the Stargate creates wormholes that allow us to travel incredible distances as easily as stepping into the next room," Sam explained. "The Goa'uld are only aware of certain addresses that can be accessed through the Stargate, but we found an Ancient database a few years ago that gave us access to a wider range of addresses. The address for this planet was one of those we found in the database, and we came here… well, to see what's here."

"Just in time to get caught up in this?" Jessie asked, looking at them in a very probing manner.

"It happens," Jack said, before he indicated the room around them. "Anyway, as long as we're sharing secrets, maybe you could answer our questions?"

"Such as?" Ash asked.

"What exactly is the deal with the mouse, the egg, and the talking cat?"


	5. A World with Monsters

"You don't know about Pokemon?"

"Poke-what?" Jack looked at the kid in surprise.

"Pokemon," Tracey cut in. "They were known as magical creatures in the past, but these days we tend to call them Pokemon, as a shortened form for 'Pocket Monsters'."

"Because they're so small?" Jack looked speculatively at the three creatures around their new acquaintances.

"I… don't think that can be the reason, sir," Sam said, looking uncertainly at Meowth before looking back at the caged birds. "I might be wrong, but earlier… Meowth… was basically translating that 'conversation' between Pikachu and that Zapdos bird, and he referred to them all as Pokemon; if size is a factor, shouldn't these birds be something else?"

"Actually," Tracey said, reaching into his pocket to take out three small red-and-white balls, "the reason we call them 'Pokemon' is because of this."

As SG-1 watched, he tapped a button on one of the balls, and it immediately expanded to the size of a baseball, followed by Tracey tossing it into the air as it opened up. A strange burst of white energy came from the now-opened ball, which swiftly solidified into a large green creature with two long scythe-like blades where hands should be, along with similar wings on its back and long green feet.

"Scyther!" the creature yelled, brandishing its claws as it looked at SG-1.

"What the _Hell_?" Jack stared incredulously at the large green thing that had just come out of the small ball. "What _is_ that?"

"My Scyther," Tracey replied with a smile, even as he tapped a button on the ball and the green thing glowed red and was apparently drawn back into the ball, which he held out to Jack for a closer look. "We call them 'Pokemon' as a shortened form for 'Pocket Monsters' as we can capture them from the wild and keep them in these Poke balls, so that we can travel with and train them."

"You… capture them… in those little balls," Jack looked at the kid and the red-and-white ball in a slight daze, as though unable to decide what to focus on first. "How does that even work?"

"Teleporters," Sam smiled.

"Teleporters?" Daniel looked at the scientist in surprise before he snapped his fingers in understanding. "Converting matter into energy, right?"

"I'd need to analyse one of those balls more closely to give a more precise assessment, but I'd assume that the basic principle is the same," Sam explained, before looking back at Jack. "As Daniel noted, teleporters work by converting matter to energy and compressing it into data that can be stored and transported to its destination; in this case, the only difference is that these balls just… well, they hold these 'Pokemon' in themselves rather than send them on somewhere else."

"Uh…" Ash raised a hand, "actually, we _can_ send Pokemon to other places once they're in their balls; we can transfer Poke Balls to and from other locations if there's a teleportation unit available, and my Krabby was sent directly to Professor Oak when I caught it."

"Krabby?" Jack looked curiously at Ash. "Lemme guess; giant crab?"

"Yeah."

"Why did it get teleported when you… caught it?" Sam asked.

"Trainers are only allowed to carry six Pokemon with them at a time," Misty explained. "Krabby was Ash's seventh catch, so it was sent directly to Professor Oak's laboratory when it was captured."

"And Professor Oak? Who's that?"

"Only the greatest living authority on Pokemon _ever_!" Tracey said, grinning broadly as he looked at the blonde astrophysicist. "He's widely acknowledged as one of the most famous Pokemon professors on the planet, and he's made several significant discoveries in the fields of human-Pokemon interaction or how the most unique Pokemon operate-!"

"OK, so this Oak guy's great; can we get back to the part where you guys basically catch these animals and _train_ them?" Jack cut in, looking pointedly between the group. "Train them to do what, exactly?"

"Battle, of course."

"Battle?" Jack repeated, looking at the young boy with the large yellow mouse on his shoulder with an ever-hardening glare at the innocent response. "As in, you make animals fight each other?"

" _Pika_!" the mouse yelled at Jack, actually managing to sound indignant at that description.

"It's not like that," Ash said, looking defensively at the colonel. "I can't speak for every trainer out there, but I've only captured Pokemon that didn't want to come with me already if they were going to be a problem staying in their original habitat, I do my best to bond with them once I've caught them, and I _definitely_ don't just send my Pokemon out to fight and nothing else!"

"It's really more like a sport than a serious _battle_ in the sense you're probably thinking of, when you get down to it," Misty stepped in. "Battles can go on between trainers until one trainer's Pokemon have all been knocked out, but Pokemon are all naturally competitive and enjoy the chance to engage in that kind of competition."

"To the point that they faint?"

"We have Pokemon centres that can treat most injuries, and we can also carry around potions and other items to treat immediate conditions," Ash put in. "Pokemon battles aren't just about going out to beat people up; the best trainers take time to coach their opponents on where they're going wrong if there's something they can do to improve, and there are often rules about the various battles so we aren't just pushing our entire team to their limit to win one fight."

"Plus, Pokemon heal fairly quickly on their own," Tracey put in. "Pushing them too far can still be an issue, of course, but they'll keep pushing themselves; my Scyther used to lead its herd until it became too old to compete against the younger Scyther, and he still formed a brief rivalry with Ash's Charizard until they calmed down."

"Chari- OK, I think that's something we'll leave for later," Jack said, waving a hand awkwardly. "Getting back to an earlier point, what did you mean when you said that you… capture these things if they're a problem?"

"Like Ash's Snorlax," Misty clarified.

"Snorlax?" Sam asked.

"Uh… here," Ash said, reaching into his pocket and pulling out a small red object that reminded Jack of a PalmPilot with a flip-screen, which he tossed over to Jack after tapping a couple of buttons.

" _ **Snorlax**_ ," the device said as Jack looked at the screen, which displayed an extremely fat creature that put Jack in mind of a fat green bear with a pale stomach and face. " _ **The Sleepling Pokemon. The heaviest known Pokemon, Snorlax can weigh up to one thousand pounds, and is capable of eating almost its own body weight before sleeping**_."

"Big creature," Jack glanced at the boy, passing the red device back to him.

"I caught my Snorlax a month or so ago because it was eating all the crops on the Seven Grapefruit Islands," Ash explained as he put the device in his pocket. "It's still tricky to find everything I need to feed him, but it stopped him damaging the island economy, and he's becoming an interesting member of my team."

"Team?"

"You mentioned you could carry… six of these Pokemon at a time, right?" Daniel put in, looking curiously at Ash. "Is there a particular reason for that?"

"I… huh," Ash looked over at his friends for a moment before shrugging uncertainly and looking back at the archaeologist. "Actually, I don't think we've ever thought about that; we keep a fixed number on the team to give us options in battle, but if you're asking why the number's six, I think it's just… that's the way it is."

"There were some reasons for choosing six as a final number when the modern Pokemon League rules were established, but I don't remember it off the top of my head…" Misty added, shaking her head uncertainly.

"We can talk about the social implications later," Sam put in, looking curiously at Ash and Misty. "Right now, I'm more interested in how these creatures can be so… varied?"

"Varied?" Misty asked.

"I mean, Pikachu and Zapdos generate electricity, Moltres appears to create fire from its own body, and you mentioned that this 'Articuno' can generate ice; what other traits can they have?"

"Traits?" Tracey asked uncertainly. "Do you mean… Types?"

"Types?" Daniel asked.

"I've witnessed around seventeen different Pokemon types in my travels as a Pokemon Watcher, and I've heard rumours of an eighteenth type that's more common in the Kalos region than anywhere else."

"There are eighteen distinctive types of these things?" Jack asked. "As in, they have eighteen different ways of fighting?"

"Fascinating," Teal'c noted as Ash nodded at the colonel's query. "What do these different types have to offer in battle and how do they affect the interaction between Pokemon?"

"Well…" Misty began. "For example, I like water-type Pokemon more than any of the others, so my team pretty much focuses on those Pokemon only- with the exception of Togepi- and they can easily win against fire, rock and ground-type Pokemon, but have trouble fighting grass and electric types, while electric types like Pikachu are seen as being _very_ good against water and flying types while being completely useless against ground types, and fire-types would have trouble with water, ground and rock while doing greater against fire and ice types…"

"In other words, different types have different strengths and weaknesses, so there's no one type that could pretty much defeat _every_ other type, right?" Daniel asked.

"Well, there are obviously some Pokemon who are stronger than others, but even they have their weaknesses," Tracey explained. "Dragon types are generally regarded as the most powerful type overall, and psychic types have a very limited range of weaknesses with the right trainer, but even then the right Pokemon could take them out…"

"I… see," Sam said, looking back at the still-imprisoned birds. "Anyway, as long as we're talking about different… Pokemon, I take it from your reaction that these birds and… Articuno… are particularly exceptional in some regard?"

"They're legendary Pokemon."

"Legendary?" Daniel asked, looking at the birds in surprise as he considered Ash's term. "They're actual _legends_?"

"Well, there are stories about certain legendary Pokemon being responsible for the creation of the world to some degree, but nobody takes those legends _that_ seriously; generally it's just agreed that legendary Pokemon are particularly powerful compared to other Pokemon of their type, and even then it could be _possible_ to beat them with a strong enough fighter…"

"OK," Jack nodded, glancing back at the captured birds. "So Hestia stole these two because they're some of the most powerful… Pokemon… out there and she wants to get that power for herself?"

"Except," Melody cut in, the young brunette having been fairly silent up until now, "that might _not_ be all we have to worry about right now."

"What?" the older woman in white said, looking over at the girl in surprise (Jack made a note to ask what that uniform was all about later, to say nothing of how their cat could talk when everything else just screeched or seemed to say its name a lot, but judging by Melody's tone they had something more immediate to worry about right now).

"Firstly, have you seen what's happening outside?" the girl asked, indicating a nearby window. Glancing outside, Jack was relieved to see that they were still on this planet and the sun was now shining as opposed to the black clouds they'd been faced with when they were captured, but he was less comforted at the sight of a completely frozen sea below them.

"OK, rapid weather shifts like that are a worry, but… oh," Sam said, looking anxiously back at Melody. "You think this is because of Articuno?"

"It fits this," Melody said, indicating the tablet in the middle of the room.

"'This'?" Jack looked curiously at the tablet. "What is 'this'?"

"Part of the prophecy of the Chosen One," Melody explained grimly. "'Disturb not the Harmony of Fire, Ice, and Lightning... lest these Titans wreak destruction upon the World in which they clash'."

"Foreboding," Jack acknowledged; he might be sceptical of prophecies even after Jonas's tumour incident just before that last mission to Abydos, but he wasn't going to ignore the possibility.

"And 'titan' in this context is referring to the birds?" Daniel asked, glancing over the tablet with a thoughtful expression.

"Hestia _was_ referring to them as titans earlier…" Sam nodded, before she followed Daniel's gaze and her eyes widened. "Wait a minute… Daniel, isn't this-?"

"Written Ancient?" Daniel finished. "Yeah, it is."

"Ancient?" Misty looked at the archaeologist in surprise. "As in… the people who built that 'Stargate' you told us about? They wrote this?"

"Well, it's a variation on the more familiar dialects I've encountered since we started using the 'gate, but there _is_ something here I recognise…" Daniel noted as he studied the tablet thoughtfully, reaching out to run his fingers over the covering separating him from the stone itself. "This part says something about the titans existing in balance to ensure the harmony of the elemental forces… there's a reference to the Water's Great Guardian…"

"'And thus the world shall turn to ash'."

"Turn to ash?" Teal'c looked curiously at Melody. "That does not sound promising."

"We've never understood it," Melody said grimly. "The tablet makes reference to bringing three treasures together to tame the 'Beast of the Sea', which is probably the 'Guardian' Doctor Jackson just mentioned, but we've never been sure what the Guardian is or how the treasures can do anything…"

"So… in other words, Hestia disrupted the spirit of harmony that kept these birds in check by trying to grab them, and now this planet's going to be completely screwed up unless this guardian can put them back in their box if we can find these 'treasures' to make sure it obeys us?" Jack asked, rolling his eyes in frustration. "Just once, I'd like an easy mission; I really thought we'd just find a few freaky Ancient engines and get a tropical vacay into the bargain…"


	6. Fleeing from Hestia

"OK," Jack said, looking over at the rest of his team as he assessed everything they'd learned so far. "Just to be sure we're all on the same page here; there are several creatures here that defy pretty much everything we thought we knew about biology and physics and maybe a whole bunch of other science stuff I'm not going to try and name now, an amateur Goa'uld scientist is trying to take control of them, and there's some prophecy in Ancient about how doing what she's doing will destroy the world?"

"Pretty much," Daniel nodded, from where he was taking photographs of the tablet he and Melody had been studying earlier.

"Great," Jack sighed as he glanced at the cages. "Well, at least these missions aren't boring."

"We have to do _something_ ," Ash said, looking urgently around the ship as it suddenly shook, accompanied by the sound of something screeching so loudly that it could even be heard inside the ship.

"Maybe if we can get Zapdos and Moltres out of here, we can at least delay whatever… Hestia… wants to do to them?" Misty put in.

"Great idea, but how?" Jack asked. "I mean, they're energy shields, so we can't exactly blow them up-"

"But we _do_ have more of these Pokemon," Daniel noted, glancing at Pikachu thoughtfully. "I don't think Scyther's going to be much help to us right now, since I'm assuming he relies on physical attacks, but if Pikachu can shoot electricity, maybe…"

"On it!" Ash said, indicating the cage. "Pikachu, Thunderbolt!"

With those commands, Pikachu jumped from its position on Ash's shoulder and launched a burst of electricity at the cage holding Moltres, which sparked for a moment but otherwise showed no sign that it had done anything.

"We're going to need more firepower," Ash said grimly, pulling out another Poke Ball and tossing it. "I choose you, Charizard!"

SG-1 could only stare in shock as the ball opened to reveal a large orange creature that they could only think of as a dragon, with short horns on its head, large blue wings, and a fierce blaze on its tail.

"They let a ten-year-old kid go around with something like _that_?" Jack glanced incredulously at his teammates as Ash ordered the dragon-like creature to launch Flamethrowers at the cage.

"We can't exactly judge this culture by our standards, Jack; keep in mind that they've been doing this for a long time before we came here…" Daniel noted.

"Fire and electricity aren't enough!" Misty said, distracting Jack from his concerns about giving children the chance to go around with dragons under their command and no direct adult supervision that he could see.

"We can't just give up!" Tracey said urgently. "We've got to keep trying."

"Well," Jessie said resolutely as she turned to look at Zapdos's cage, "if things are going to start to get ugly, we might as well try Weezing."

"Right," James said, pulling out his own Poke Ball. "Go!"

With that command, a strange creature that Jack could only describe to himself as a two-headed floating purple ball appeared in the air, and quickly began to ram itself against the cage.

As Jessie released a large purple snake while Ash released a small blue turtle and what Jack could only think of as a small dinosaur with a bulb instead of spines on its back, they launched a new series of attacks against the cages. Glancing at the table display holding his team's weapons, Jack contemplated asking Sam to hack it open, but quickly turned that idea down; even if they could find a terminal she could access, he had no idea what they could shoot on these cages without risking the birds even if the force field hadn't been in the way, which meant that Teal'c's staff was the only weapon that might have been able to do anything to it…

His thoughts on what to do next were cut short when there was a sudden explosion from Moltres's cage, the flaming bird erupting from the now-broken sphere and launching a powerful burst of flame at Zapdos's cage. Jessie and James barely had time to recall the snake and the two-headed ball before the lightning bird burst from its own cage, the two birds firing simultaneous attacks at the wall that tore a large hole in the wall. Tearing out of the hall that had been their prison, the birds launched further attacks at the ship's walls, SG-1 and their new allies only able to watch as the legendary Pokemon literally crashed their way towards the ship's exterior in a matter of seconds.

"OK!" Jack called over the rush of escaping air to his new and old allies. " _That_ was impressive!"

"Our weapons!" Sam yelled, hurrying over to the table, cursing when a quick check confirmed that the force field was still active. "We need to shut this-"

"I'm on it!" Ash called out as he hurried over to the table, those Pokemon that had been released from their balls swiftly returned to them. "Pikachu, Thunder!"

Stepping back instinctively from the table, Jack watched as the small yellow mouse launched was seemed to be an even more powerful electric attack at the table. For a moment, the force field glowed against the electrical assault, but it soon sputtered out and vanished, Pikachu immediately ceasing its attack and smiling up at SG-1.

"Uh… thanks," Sam said, awkwardly patting Pikachu on the head as they picked up their weapons, the mouse-thing letting out a 'Chaa' of satisfaction. "We-"

Further explanation was interrupted when Teal'c raised his staff weapon and fired it over Misty's shoulder, striking a Jaffa in the chest as he entered the hole created by the two fleeing birds.

"We have to get out of here!" Daniel yelled, slipping his own gun into its holster as he looked anxiously around the ship. "I think this thing is going down!"

"That is most likely, Daniel Jackson; these ships were not designed to sustain such damage," Teal'c noted, his staff weapon still raised as he glanced at the rest of their group. "Are any of your Pokemon particularly suited for assisting us in making an escape?"

"Let's try this!" Ash yelled, tossing a ball and releasing the same large creature Jack had seen on the red computer thing earlier. "Snorlax, get us out of here!"

The creature muttered its name and then began to charge through the ship, its initial impact widening the hole that the birds had made in their escape and then moving along the corridor, knocking the approaching Jaffa out of its path before they could even raise their staff weapons.

"OK," Jack glanced over at Ash as the group ran down the corridor, "for a big fat lump, that thing can _move_."

"Yeah, he's strong, but he can sleep too much sometimes," Ash half-shrugged as he ran alongside the colonel. "I'm still working on how much to feed Snorlax without it just falling asleep for too long…"

"It's a tricky balance, but we're working on it," Misty said, tossing out a ball of her own and releasing a creature that looked like a giant brown starfish with a golden centre around a red jewel. "Staryu, let's- _Psyduck_!" the young woman yelled as a red light emerged from her bag to form into a yellow duck with wide eyes that was holding its head in its 'hands'. " _Get back in your ball_!"

The duck looked vacantly at the assembled group for a moment, but the moment passed as another Jaffa troop emerged from the other end of the corridor while the ten-person team ran past the duck, Misty grabbing the vacant-looking creature and leaving it to scramble up her back and dive into her bag with a quack of panic. At pretty much the moment that the duck was safe, Tracey called out his Scyther once more, the large green insect-thing slicing its way through the next couple of Jaffa, accompanied by a series of shots from Jessie's purple snake. It took them a couple of minutes before they caught up with Snorlax, which was standing next to a large hole leading out of the ship, an island coming into focus on the edge of the hole.

"That's Lightning Island!" Melody called out in surprise.

"As in Zapdos's island?" Ash asked the brunette, even as he, Tracey and Jessie recalled their Pokemon to their balls.

"More importantly, as in the place where we're going to _crash_ if we don't get out of this ship before it hits!" Jack yelled, glancing out of the hole for a moment before he came to a decision, hoping he'd remembered Carter's lectures about how the artificial gravity on these things worked when they were in an atmosphere. "Everybody get out and run on my mark!"

" _Run_?" Tracey looked at Jack incredulously.

"Are yous _insane_?" the cat-thing called.

"Look, we either stay here and let the Jaffa catch up to us once Hestia gets her act together after that breakout, or we run out of this hole and hope we can jump to the ground before this thing falls off the island or Hestia regains control," Jack looked urgently between the young man and the cat. "It's not the safest option, but it's the best-"

" _Run_!" Teal'c suddenly yelled, jumping out of the hole and running down the side of the ha'tak, followed closely by the rest of SG-1 and their new allies as their options became 'run' or 'die'. As the group desperately raced towards the island just visible at the edge of the hull of the ship, Jack tried not to think about just how insanely dangerous this was; he might be in an atmosphere, but there was still something fundamentally _wrong_ about the idea of running along the hull of a spaceship…

When they reached the edge of the hull at last, Jack barely had time to register how the rest of the team were doing before he jumped to safety himself, the group clearing the gap as the ha'tak began to fall backwards. Taking a moment to confirm that the rest of his team and their new friends were all right- privately amazed that the girl had managed to keep hold of that little egg-thing despite that sudden dip- Jack turned back around to look at the ship, only to find himself struck in the face with the blunt end of a staff weapon, sending him flying backward even as he heard Teal'c roar in rage. Shaking his head to clear the ringing in his ears, Jack looked up to see Teal'c trading blows with the Jaffa that must have followed them out of the crack.

For a moment, the two men lashed out at each other with their respective staff weapons, the other Jaffa lighter on his feet but Teal'c clearly the physically stronger combatant, the rest of the group only able to watch as Daniel and Sam recognised their inability to do anything else and their new acquaintances were merely watching in awe. The strange duel continued for a few moments until Teal'c's opponent was able to knock him back far enough to give the other man space to aim the staff weapon at the former First Prime's face. Before he could fire the weapon, Teal'c had used his own staff to knock the tip of the weapon away from him, Sam knocking Tracey and James to the ground as the redirected blast shot through the air where they had just been standing. Jack heard something that sounded like stone breaking, but he didn't have a chance to look for what had caused it before Teal'c followed up his attack by swinging the other end of his staff into his foe's jaw, knocking the man's head back with such force that his neck snapped. Even as the Jaffa's body fell to the ground, Teal'c spun his staff around and fired a quick blast at the enemy's chest, destroying the symbiote before it could try to escape.

"Oh my God…" Misty said, staring between the panting Teal'c and the Jaffa in front of him in horror, Jack cursing as his head finally cleared enough to realise that the barely-teenage girl they'd been trying to protect had just seen one of his team kill somebody. "You… you just…"

"If I had not done so, he would not have hesitated to kill or capture any of us for attempting to defy his god," Teal'c said, looking at Misty with a solemn expression. "I regret that you had to witness this, but I do not regret what I have done to protect us."

"But I… that was…" Misty said, still looking shaken as she held her Togepi, one hand over the egg-thing's eyes.

"I know," Daniel said, reaching over to place a sympathetic hand on Misty's shoulder. "Believe me, I don't like this part of travelling through the Stargate any more than you do, but there wasn't a choice; anyone coming after us like that would do anything in the name of pleasing their god, and we couldn't afford to do anything else if we want to stay free and stop Hestia from getting her hands on those birds."

"I… I just…" Misty began, before she sighed in frustration, staring sadly down at Togepi. "I just wish… I get that you're good people, but…"

"First time's never easy," Jack put in, his words in response to the girl even as he looked around at the rest of their strange new friends. "But that's the thing; it _shouldn't_ be easy. Killing isn't some badge of honour, but something we do only because we don't have any option left. When it gets easy to kill, you become like these guys… and I think we can all agree nobody here wants to be like that."

The young redhead still appeared to be shaking, but at least she seemed to be willing to accept what they'd done, looking at Jack and Teal'c with a more solemn understanding.

"Look at this!" Melody called out, prompting Jack to turn and look at the small stone shrine at the end of a rocky outlet that had been broken by the earlier staff blast. "We landed pretty much right next to the shrine on Lightning Island!"

"The shrine?" Ash repeated, hurrying over to look at the shrine himself, bending down to pick up the small glass sphere that must have once been held at the shrine before its destruction.

"You're still looking for those things?" Misty looked indignantly at Ash. "We have more important things to-"

"Actually," Daniel cut in, adjusting his glasses as he looked at the glowing ball in their young friend's hand, "I have a feeling those treasures are going to be _very_ important…"

"Talk about your theories later; run now!" Jack yelled, sighing in relief as he noticed a cove just below them with Melody's boat floating in it; the thing must have fallen out of Hestia's ship before the _ha'tak_ itself fell away. "Get to that boat; maybe we can use it to get away from this stupid island before one of the birds gets lucky!"


	7. The Beast of the Sea

Much to Jack's relief, after everything they'd been through getting onto that island, getting down to the boat in the pool was perfectly simple despite the snowy hill between them and it. Jessie, James and Meowth reached the boat before the rest of the group, but to their credit, the three didn't take the boat for themselves; Jack chose to interpret that as them wanting to wait for their current allies rather than them being too petrified with fear to do anything.

"Uh… are you sure this was a good idea?" James asked, the young man clearly on the verge of panic as SG-1 gathered in the boat with their new allies while the three birds continued to fire attacks at each other above them.

"Funnily enough, my instructors never covered exactly how to get away from a trio of birds that could burn me, shock me or freeze me," Jack countered, glaring over at James even as he finished checking the engine; the boat wasn't quite what he was used to from Earth, but there were enough similarities for him to be sure he hadn't done anything stupid. "I'm having to improvise my way through this mess in the name of staying alive, so maybe you could stop _criticising_ the way I'm doing that and help me make sure we all live through this?"

Jack was suddenly grateful that he hadn't said the part about doing something stupid out loud when a loud crackle of electricity was accompanied by the jerking sensation in his stomach that signified that the boat was moving. He just had time to realise that what he presumed was Zapdos had damaged a wall in their small pool before the boat was falling off the mini-waterfall that had just been created, heading towards the frozen sea at the bottom…

Jack had just managed to grab James' collar with the goal of dragging him to the other end of the boat, in the hope that they could let the front part take the worst of the upcoming impact, when what he could only call a whirlpool suddenly erupted from underneath the frozen sea, catching the boat mid-air before it began to carry them through the ocean.

"What the _hell_?" Jack yelled, looking over the side of the boat before turning back to the other kids. "Can any Pokemon do this?"

"Well… some Water Pokemon can summon whirlpools as an attack, but I can't think of any that can do it on this kind of scale," Misty said, anxiously clutching Togepi with one hand even as she held onto the railing with the other while glancing over the edge of the boat.

"Hey…" Daniel said, looking curiously around the boat as he cocked his head to one side. "Can you hear that?"

"Indeed," Teal'c mused, his own head tilted thoughtfully as he took in the strange music around them.

"It… it's familiar…" Melody mused uncertainly.

"We're coming in!" Carter yelled, drawing their attention away from the music to focus on the sight in front of them, the boat now approaching another island with a series of stone pillars arranged in a circular format that put Jack in mind of a professionally-crafted version of Stonehenge. He had no idea what would make a whirlpool send their boat in one specific direction, but it was clear that they didn't have any real choice in what they were going to do next.

"Get to the front and get ready to run!" he yelled over at the rest of their makeshift crew. He lost track of Jessie, James and Meowth as the boat reached the edge of the island, but the rest of their temporarily-expanded team joined him at the front of the boat in time to run to safety, leaving the boat to fall to the icy ocean below while the four kids, three adults, one Jaffa, and two Pokemon landed on the ground, leaving all of them shaking at the closeness of their latest escape.

"That was the most unique escape we have ever experienced," Teal'c put in as he got to his feet.

"And that's before you start thinking about how we're dealing with those birds on top of everything else," Jack noted, before he turned around and noticed something standing in the middle of the Stonehenge-like circle. It was obviously another Pokemon, standing on its hind legs, but this one had a red-and-white ruff around its neck, wide eyes that put Jack in mind of Misty's duck, and something on its head that put him in mind of some kind of strange combination of a shell and a crown

"Take the treasure," the creature said, turning to point at a large stone altar in the centre of the stones behind it, "and put it there."

"You can talk?" Ash said, staring at the pink thing in surprise for a moment, before a comment from Pikachu reminded the boy that he had actually been given an instruction. Getting to his feet, Ash ran towards the altar, which from the other side resembled a gaping mouth for some unknown creature with some kind of fancy crest on its head, where the view from where they had landed had made it more like a tall throne. After examining the altar for a moment, Ash placed the two orbs he had collected in two of the slots in front of him, his gaze settling on the third and only empty slot.

"So, you're Ash," the pink thing said, walking up behind the boy as he stared at the third slot. "You're one treasure short."

"Yeah, I am," Ash said, looking at the creature in confusion. "But… how'd you know my name?"

"And who- or what- are you?" Sam asked, SG-1 and their new allies now standing at the other side of the shrine (Jack only just noted that Jessie, James and Meowth were missing, but this wasn't the time to worry about three people he'd only just met when he still had four kids to protect).

"Slowking," Melody explained. "This Slowking has been the keeper of the Legend of the Chosen One for years; that's speculated to be the reason he can talk-"

Further explanation was interrupted when a loud screech tore through the air. Looking in the direction of the noise, it was soon clear that the three birds were fighting once again, Zapdos firing a massive thunderbolt at the sea below that had clearly been intended for Articuno before the other bird moved out of the way. Articuno and Moltres were initially firing attacks at each other before flying away, prompting Zapdos to try and attack them itself before they moved above it to attack each other once more, but soon the three birds 'settled' into a weaving pattern, all three of them trying to get above each other to mount new attacks. As they drew closer to the shrine, Jack was once again torn between trying to find cover and trying to fight them off, but the sheer power displayed as the three birds destroyed the frozen sea was enough to discourage both ideas.

"Cut it OUT!" Ash yelled, running to the edge of the cliff overlooking the sea, as though he could command those three birds to be silent with the power of his words. As the birds' attacks came closer to the shrine, Jack raised his P-90 out of a lack of better ideas, but any thoughts of firing were cut short when another sudden whirlpool appeared from the sea between the island and the birds, knocking the three legends backwards.

"O'Neill!" Teal'c called over to the team leader even as he raised his staff weapon, ready to try something even if it would likely be pointless. "There is something within-!"

Teal'c's statement became irrelevant as the whirlpool seemingly exploded and vanished, leaving a fourth bird apparently floating in the air between them and the other three, only occasionally flapping its long wings. A glance at its appearance revealed that this bird's wings almost resembled arms, with what looked like hands on the ends, and it had two large blue markings on either side of its head, as well as an elongated point at the back of its head that gave the impression it was wearing a helmet. There were strange blue plates on its back, as well as two larger plates on the end of its tail, and it was flapping its strange wings so slowly that even Jack knew enough about biology to guess that something else was keeping this bird in the air.

"The Great Guardian…" the pink thing said, staring up at the bird in awe. "Lugia!"

"I can't believe it," Melody said, staring at the bird in awe.

"Lugia?" Ash said uncertainly.

"The water's great guardian…" Daniel muttered, half to himself, as the fourth bird let out a strange-sounding roar and flew towards the other three. Zapdos launched the first attack, but Lugia weaved around it, starting a rapid aerial assault as the newly-arrived Lugia weaved around the attacks from the other three. Once Lugia had moved further away from the island, it dived down below the frozen surface of the ocean, before erupting upwards through a new whirlpool. Another blast from Articuno froze the whirlpool solid, but Lugia erupted from the heart of the whirlpool before SG-1 or their allies could react. For a few moments, the first three birds continued to try and attack the fourth, but after weaving around the attacks again, Jack briefly glimpsed some kind of bubble form around Lugia, followed by a burst of energy that Jack could only think of as the attacks being reflected back towards their sources.

"'Though the water's great guardian shall arise to quell the fighting, alone its song shall fail'," Melody said, her voice low as she watched the battle unfolding before them, Lugia once again weaving around the attacks its fellows were firing at it.

"So we're relying on that prophecy for ideas now?" Jack glanced at the girl.

"I thought you said we shouldn't take that seriously?" Misty looked at Melody, although there was no real edge to her statement, making it clear that she understood that nobody could have expected this scenario to be real.

Melody's next words were never voiced as the battle they were watching escalated, Lugia barely evading the attacks as they drew closer to the island. Taking up a position above the shrine, Lugia wsa able to deflect the first few, but then a thunderbolt struck it, followed by attacks from the other two birds.

"NO!" Jack yelled, he and Sam raising their P-90s as Teal'c held up his staff weapon. Even as they moved, it was clear that there was nothing any of them could do but watch as Lugia fell into the sea below the shrine, followed by the three birds freezing the hole in the surface once again.

"No…" Daniel said, staring at the assembled birds in apprehension as they flew away, resuming their deadly conflict.

Jack was still trying to work out exactly what was going on here, but if he'd interpreted that prophecy Melody had recited earlier correctly, they'd just seen their best chance to stop these birds tearing the planet apart get blasted into unconsciousness, and they still had no idea what to do to stop things getting worse, and that was before he took Hestia into account.

He had never felt so utterly confused about how he could solve a problem, and the Goa'uld were only playing a small part in the reason this was so complicated.


	8. The Great Guardian

"There's only one hope," Slowking said, staring solemnly out at the ocean before them as the birds continued to engage in their pointless battle with each other, a mass of creatures gathered beyond the battlefield even if they seemed to be doing nothing more than maintaining a line. "Only the Chosen One can bring together the Treasures to help the Waters' Great Guardian."

"But the legends said that the song will fail!" Melody protested.

"Actually…" Daniel said, reaching into his pocket and pulling out his camera before Jack could comment on unusually depressing legends, "that's not _entirely_ accurate."

"What?" Misty looked at him in surprise, as Daniel began flicking through the photos on his camera. "What do you mean?"

"Well," Daniel explained, as he brought up the image he'd taken of the tablet in Hestia's ship, "when I was reading this, I told you that I recognised the language, so when Melody was telling us about the legend back on her island, I was comparing the writing with what I know of their language, and realised there's been a crucial contextual anomaly."

"Which means…?" Jack asked, even as he was hopeful that his friend was going somewhere with this.

"Basically," Daniel explained as he looked over at Melody, "you were all translating 'turn to' in the sense of a transformation, in that you assumed it meant that the world would turn _into_ ash, but actually, in this context, it means 'turn' in the _directional_ sense."

"…What?" Ash looked sharply at the archaeologist.

"So…" Misty looked awkwardly between Daniel and Ash. "You're saying that the prophecy doesn't say that the world will turn _into_ ash… but the world will turn _to_ Ash to save it?"

"Well, they obviously don't explicitly say what Ash will do after that, but considering that the next line here calls on the Chosen One to gather these treasures…"

"So you mean… _I'm_ the _real_ Chosen One?" Ash looked incredulously between his friend and the archaeologist.

"OK, time out here; how the _Hell_ could this work?" Jack cut in. "In a world this big, the one guy who can do anything about this problem shows up just after it's kicked off? How much of a stretch is that?"

"Well," Sam noted, "it doesn't explain how Ash was identified as such, but keep in mind that we already have evidence that only certain people can use Ancient technology, like that time we discovered that Ancient repository…"

"You mean the one that stuck all that stuff in my head?"

"I'm sorry; something… stuck something in your head?" Tracey cut in.

"Long story, not important to this situation," Jack waved a dismissive hand at the Pokemon Watcher before turning back to Sam. "Your point?"

"Well, if we take that as an example of how the Ancients designed some technology so that it would only respond to people who met a certain criteria we haven't identified yet, couldn't Ash have some similar… genetic capability?" Sam continued. "I mean, it would explain why these orbs haven't reacted for anyone else when this ceremony was performed before…"

"That does not explain how whoever wrote this tablet would have known the name of the one who would possess such an ability," Teal'c put in.

"And _that_ was what I was talking about!" Jack smiled at Teal'c in relief.

"Time travel."

" _Time travel_?" the kids looked at Daniel incredulously.

"That's a _thing_ in… in everything else you have to deal with?" Ash asked the archaeologist incredulously.

"We've encountered it once or twice, but it's… complicated," Daniel said, shrugging out of a lack of anything else to say.

"We know that the Ancients were experimenting with time travel, but we've never actually seen any evidence that they mastered it," Sam countered.

"Until now," Daniel said, his manner picking up as he smiled at their assembled friends. "It's the only way this tablet makes sense; they saw that Ash would be the one to save the world and left instructions on how he could do it."

" _Instructions_?" Melody repeated incredulously.

"I didn't say they were _good_ instructions."

"You can say that again!" Ash said, looking anxiously around at the adults. "Look… training Pokémon's tough enough, but saving the world is way too hard!"

"Hey, speaking as the guy who's had to do it on a few occasions, I can get behind that view," Jack smiled sympathetically at Ash, reaching over to pick up one of the crystal spheres and sighing in resignation when he confirmed that the spheres displayed no reaction to his touch. "Unfortunately, I think this proves that we can't do anything about this ourselves, so it looks like you're stuck with it."

"Colonel O'Neill's right, Ash," Tracey said. "It's not easy, but you're the only person who matches the legend exactly."

"Ash, this is all my fault," Melody said apologetically. "I never should've dragged you into this."

"Don't blame yourself," Misty noted. "Ash always gets us into trouble."

"Yeah, but nothing like _this_!"

"Could this not be the result of our accumulative ill-fortune making this situation particularly precarious?" Teal'c suggested.

"Oh, _that's_ an encouraging thought," Jack noted.

"Lugia…" Melody suddenly said, looking into her bag and pulling out her flute. "The sound it makes is just like the song from the legend."

As the rest of the group looked at the young brunette, she raised her flute to her lips and began to play it, even as the battle continued to wage behind them. After a few moments, she put down the flute and turned back to the edge of the island, just as a brilliantly-coloured whirlpool burst out of the sea, quickly dispersing to reveal a revived Lugia.

" _The song_ ," a voice said, filling the minds of all who stood below the bird. " _The song has restored my strength. But it alone cannot bring harmony to the three warring ones_."

"What do you mean?" Ash asked, Jack fighting down his instinctive incredulity at another talking bird in favour of focusing on the current problem.

" _When the treasures of Fire, Ice, and Lightning are aligned, my song will harmonize with their powers and tame the beasts both above and below the sea. But this can come to pass only with the help of the Chosen One_."

"But what can I do that somebody else can't?" Ash asked

" _Only in the hands of the true Chosen One will the Ice Sphere glow like the others, its power awakened_ ," Lugia said, the bird turning slightly as though indicating Ice Island.

"I-I have to go... there?" Ash asked, staring anxiously at the island in question, the three other birds now fighting in front of it.

" _The choice is yours_ ," the bird said solemnly. " _You must go only where your heart leads_."

If it had been any other situation, Jack would have offered to take on that job himself rather than leave a pre-teen boy with that kind of responsibility, but since he'd already confirmed that he couldn't get any kind of reaction out of the three orbs himself, he didn't think he had any objections that wouldn't just make things more complicated at best…

"Pikachu," the yellow mouse said suddenly, stepping forward to tug on Ash's trouser leg, smiling up at its master.

"Pikachu?" Ash said, looking down at the small mouse, which nodded before there was a burst of light from Ash's belt and the four Pokemon SG-1 had witnessed earlier emerged from their balls, gathered around their training and looking encouragingly at him.

"You think so… too?" Ash looked around his Pokemon in surprise, the humans in the group watching him silently, even as the young boy's shoulders shook. "O-OK… I'll do whatever it takes to get that third treasure… but what if I mess up? What if… I…"

"You can do it," Misty said softly.

"We know you can," Melody added firmly.

"Yeah… you're right," Ash said, raising his head in new resolution. "I can do it. I'm the Chosen One."

"This is an extremely dangerous situation to be in," Teal'c noted, glancing out at the surrounding islands and the warring birds. "Aside from the obvious threat posed by Articuno, Zapdos and Moltres, we still have to deal with Hestia."

"Good point… Hey, uh, big bird?" Jack said, stepping forward to look up at Lugia as he took up the conversation. "I get that you're worried about the other three winged guys out there tearing the planet apart, and I'm all for you helping Ash here deal with that, but any chance you can do anything about the psycho alien that started all this first?"

" _If you refer to the one who initially captured Moltres and Zapdos, I cannot_ ," Lugia replied solemnly. " _I am responsible for restoring harmony between my brethren at this time; what fate will befall the one who created the imbalance is a matter for your people_."

"In other words, stopping the Goa'uld psycho's up to us," Jack said, sighing as he glanced across the sea to Lightning Island, where Hestia's damaged ha'tak was still visible off in the distance. " _Great_ … so now we've got to cross all that ice _and_ fight a Goa'uld into the bargain."

"Maybe…" Ash said, looking over the cliff at the wrecked boat below them and then glancing between Ice Island and Lightning Island, a smile slowly spreading across his face. "But then again, maybe neither of us have to cross the ice ourselves."

"Pardon?"

"Well…" Ash said, thoughtfully indicating the damaged boat below them. "The birds are probably going to focus on me and Lugia if we try going out there again, so I was thinking that I could set up a sled of some sort with some of the parts down there and have Charizard pull me along while Squirtle and Bulbasuar ride along for additional protection…"

"Not going to just fly there?"

"My weight might slow Charizard down too much; at least this way I'd have more options if the birds get in close," Ash explained, even as he pulled out a couple of Poke Balls and held them out to the colonel. "Anyway, the point is that, if you need to get to Lightning Island, I could let you borrow Snorlax and Lapras."

"How would this be of benefit to our efforts?" Teal'c asked, even as he was clearly intrigued at the offer.

"Well, Snorlax can swim fairly quickly, but it just wouldn't be a good idea for anyone to ride it," Ash explained. "I was thinking that Snorlax could swim a clear path to Lightning Island through the ice, and then Lapras could carry the four of you to Lightning Island on its back."

"That… could work," Misty nodded, looking at Ash with a slight smile, before she turned to face SG-1 while reaching into her own bag, pulling out another Poke Ball. "You can borrow Staryu as well."

"And Scyther," Tracey added, offering his own ball. "We can tell them to take orders from you once you get to Hestia's… ship, and take it from there."

"Uh… thanks," Jack said, taking the offered ball from Tracey while Sam picked up Misty's ball, leaving Daniel and Teal'c to take the two balls Ash was holding out. Ordering animals into battle on his behalf would have felt wrong on any other occasion, but from what these kids had told him about society here, it didn't seem _that_ objectionable…

" _Good luck_ ," Lugia said, looking solemnly at SG-1. " _I must fulfil my role of guarding the Chosen One, but you have taken on a great burden for our world_."

"It's what we do," Jack shrugged, lost for anything better to say as he took in the situation before them.

A several-kilometre trip across a frozen ocean while three giant birds of impossible power tried to blast and peck the crap out of each other above his team, while they were intending to go up against a Goa'uld who fancied herself a mad scientist with no clear plan behind what they'd do when they got there.

_Still_ , Jack thought to himself, studying the ball Ash had given him, _considering our current potential assets, we've had worse odds._


	9. Monster Allies

"OK," Jack said, watching as the large green-and-cream form of Snorlax swam through the water with an almost unbelievably fast butterfly stroke for something of its weight, "is this the most bizarre mission we've ever been on, or is it me?"

"I would be inclined to consider our excursion to the world of sentient water to be at least close to this one, O'Neill," Teal'c observed, as he adjusted his position on Lapras's large purple shell.

"That was weird, but this world has a _lot_ more variety behind it," Daniel observed. He had initially asked to stay behind on the main island to study some more of the Ancient text on the pillars around the main shrine, but Jack had decided that it was more important to bring him along to make sure they could track down any of the records Hestia had found that had led her to this planet in the first place. Daniel would probably have to stay slightly at the back when they broke into Hestia's ship, but they needed to mount a swift surgical strike to get through the Ha'tak's defences and take down its crew before they could strike back.

"Almost there!" Sam said, adjusting her grip on the ball Misty had given her as they approached the island where the ship had crashed.

"OK, team," Jack said, checking his P-90 as Snorlax left the water channel in front of them and began to run up the island towards the crashed ship. "Remember, we get there and we're going straight to hostile territory, so shoot down everything that shows its face and keep an eye out for the big cheese."

"And don't shoot the Birds if they get involved," Daniel put in. "The prophecy suggests that we can still resolve this peacefully if Ash can bring the treasures together, but killing them… well, I'd be against it even if there was just a cultural issue at risk here."

"Check; no shooting the flaming, freezing, or zapping birds unless we absolutely have to," Jack nodded, leaping off Lapras as the blue creature finally came to a stop on the edge of the island. Sam and Teal'c hurried up the island after Jack, Daniel pausing just long enough to return Lapras to its ball before he ran after his teammates. As they reached the crashed ship, Daniel was impressed to see how Snorlax had punched another hole in the wall of the downed ha'tak, even if the large Pokemon was now slumped against the wall snoring deeply.

"It dozed off?" Daniel looked at Snorlax in surprise as he joined his teammates gathered around the hole.

"Ash and his friends did say that Snorlax tends to sleep more than actually fight," Sam noted, looking the creature over with a slight smile even as Teal'c recalled Snorlax to its ball. "Frankly, it's probably easier this way; using Snorlax inside there would take up more space than we can afford to lose."

"Time for the mantis and the starfish, huh?" Jack smiled as he took out the ball Tracey had lent him when they left the island.

"Here goes nothing," Sam said, tossing out the ball she'd received from Misty. As the balls opened, Scyther and Staryu emerged, looking at SG-1 with a curious manner despite Staryu's lack of a face.

"We're going in," Jack said as he addressed the two Pokemon. "Stay alongside us and hit anything that gets close enough; clear?"

"Scyther!" Scyther nodded, while Staryu let out a strange call that sounded like a martial artist mid-attack. Glancing back at the frozen sea beyond them, Jack was relieved to see the distant orange form of Charizard was still flying strong, the makeshift sled carrying Ash just visible behind it, but he reminded himself of his priorities as he turned back to the ship in front of him. Walking into the downed ha'tak, Jack found himself briefly smiling at how things had changed from the first time the team had found themselves on one of these things; they'd spent so much time basically stumbling around the first time they were on a ha'tak, and now they could walk on board and know exactly where to go.

Granted, the black corridors still seemed a bit 'samey' at times, but with Teal'c to give them a few pointers, and after the time they'd spent with Cronus's ship, he could be fairly sure they were going in the right direction. The corridors were unusually sparse of Jaffa activity based on Jack's usual experience with these things, but he was going to bet that was just because Hestia had lost most of her forces earlier rather than her not having started out with a lot in the first place. They managed to get lucky and just run into a couple of solo guards on patrols at first, each of whom were quickly put down with a shot to the head while they were distracted, but hopes of an easy trip were cut short when they rounded another corner and found themselves facing eight Jaffa blocking the corridor ahead.

"Back and-!" Jack began as the Jaffa raised their weapons, only to be interrupted as a strange bright glow suddenly appeared in the middle of the room. For a moment, Jack hoped that Thor or another Asgard had shown up, but the glow swiftly faded to reveal four creatures that had to be more Pokemon, even if they didn't match anything he'd seen yet. The creature in the middle of the group was a humanoid figure that looked vaguely fox-like, with big ears and what looked for all the world like a long moustache, as well as a thick thing on its rear that could be a tail, with a star in the centre of its forehead and a spoon of all things in one hand. Another was basically a small grey ball that floated in mid-air with one large central eye, two magnets on either side of it and three screws sticking out of its body. A third looked surprisingly human, but possessed the kind of muscles that Jack was sure would make even Teal'c feel slightly inadequate, wearing what Jack could only think of as black swimming trunks, with a couple of small ridges on its head. The fourth new arrival looked like a medium-sized dog with a white chest and face and orange-and-black fur, but then it charged towards the nearest Jaffa while launching a blast of fire from its mouth, and Jack re-evaluated what this thing was capable of.

"What the-?" Sam looked at the four creatures in surprise, as the fox-thing waved its empty hand and threw a group of Jaffa into a wall while the muscular grey man-thing lashed out at another group with blows that looked like they could have shattered concrete. As the other three tore their way through the Jaffa, the grey ball-thing turned around and fired a blast of electricity at the walls, shutting down the force field that had been keeping SG-1 trapped.

"Magnemite," the creature said, floating towards SG-1 with a tone of what could be enthusiasm in its mechanical-sounding voice.

"Uh… thanks?" Sam said, smiling uncertainly at the creature.

"Hold on…" Daniel said, pulling out a small red device from his pocket.

"What's that?" Jack asked.

"Ash called it a 'PokeDex'," Daniel explained, as he flipped the object open. "He described it as a computer and personal ID used by certain Pokemon trainers; it gives the user information on all kinds of Pokemon, so while he's meant to keep it on himself most of the time, he lent it to me in case of… well, something like this."

" _ **Magnemite**_ ," the red computer said, Daniel targeting it to analyse the nearby grey ball-thing as the last of the Jaffa ran down the corridor away from the other three attacking creatures. " _ **The Magnet Pokemon. This Pokemon can float through the air and generate electric attacks through the magnet-shaped units on its sides**_."

"Magnemite," the creature said, 'nodding' as it bobbed up and down in the air, before it was joined by its three associates.

"OK," Sam said, smiling slightly as Magnemite began floating above her shoulder, "that's this one; what are the other three?"

"Hold on…" Daniel said, turning the PokeDex towards the other new Pokemon.

" _ **Kadabra**_ ," the computer reported as it scanned the fox-thing. " _ **The Psychic Pokemon. The evolved form of Abra. It can emit special alpha waves from its body that induce headaches**_."

"Huh," Daniel looked at the creature thoughtfully.

" _ **Growlithe**_ ," the PokeDex announced after it was turned on the red-and-black dog. " _ **The Puppy Pokemon. Loyal to their masters, Growlithe will drive away any enemy with bites and flames, fearlessly standing up to larger foes**_."

"Nice," Jack smiled at the small puppy-like creature.

" _ **Machoke**_ ," the red device concluded as it analysed the tall grey body-builder thing. " _ **The Superpower Pokemon. The evolved form of Machop. Machoke regularly undertake bodybuilding exercises to maintain their strength even when assisting humans with physically demanding labour**_."

"Most impressive," Teal'c observed.

"Choke," the Machoke nodded, looking at Tealc in a manner that Jack could best think of as one fighter approving another's strength.

" _Scyth_ ," Scyther noted, its initial fatigue 'replaced' by a more subtle panting that SG-1 might have missed if they weren't looking for it.

"But how did they get here?" Sam asked.

"Hold on…" Daniel said, quickly checking the PokeDex before he nodded. "Ah, here we are; Kadabra is one of a number of Pokemon that can teleport on their own."

"That thing can teleport?" Jack looked curiously at the Pokmon in question.

" _Dabra_ ," Kadabra confirmed.

"Nice trick," Jack nodded at the strange creature in approval, being met with a pleased acknowledgement from the Kadabra.

"So that explains _how_ they got here, but it doesn't explain _why_ they're here," Sam noted, even as she gave Magnemite a grateful smile. "I mean, I'm grateful for their help, but how did they know to come here?"

" _Growl_!" Growlithe said, jumping up to affectionately lick Jack's cheek.

" _Choke_ ," Machoke said, punching Teal'c's shoulder in a camaraderie manner, while Staryu made that same strange noise that was all it could 'say' as it waved its arms, as though trying to indicate all four of the new arrivals.

"Uh… do you get the impression they know more about what's going on than your standard animal?" Jack asked, only to get a sharp bark from Growlithe accompanied by a brief burst of flaming sparks. "Hey, no offence meant; still getting used to all this, you know!"

"Growl…" Growlithe said, its voice low as it gave Jack a warning look before it turned to face the other end of the corridor with a sharp, enthusiastic bark.

"Does it… want us to follow it?" Sam asked, looking at the dog-thing in surprise.

"Y'know, I think so…" Jack said, looking thoughtfully at the fiery dog before he looked back at his teammates. "OK, I admit that this is taking a leap by our standards, but after everything we've seen about these things already… maybe we _not_ look this gift horse in the mouth and focus on getting to the heart of the ship?"

"With them?" Daniel raised his eyebrows in surprise, even as he looked at Kadabra in a thoughtful manner.

"They have come to join us in this struggle, and we should respect that decision even if we do not understand how they came to make it," Teal'c observed. "Ash Ketchum is facing significant challenges outside this ship as a result of Hestia's presence on this planet, and we are the ones best qualified to ensure that she does not do such a thing again; we must not neglect any such advantages in our own struggle."

"Exactly," Jack nodded at the Jaffa, before checking his P-90 and indicating the corridor ahead of them. "Let's keep going."

_These guys might be our strangest local allies ever, but I'm going to look forward to seeing what they can do…_


	10. God-Made Monsters

When SG-1 finally reached Hestia's command centre, Jack wasn't sure if he and the team had been lured into a trap or just been lucky to have exceptional allies. The six Pokemon with them might have been the strangest animals Jack had encountered since he started travelling to other planets, but he was reluctant to dismiss them as feral creatures, particularly with how they had adjusted to acting as part of the team. Along with the Staryu and Scyther Misty and Tracey had lent them, the four 'wild' Pokemon all obeyed whichever member of SG-1 gave them an order, but Jack had noted that their four new arrivals had appeared to be particularly receptive when taking orders from one of them in particular. Magnemite was currently floating around Carter's head like a small moon, Machoke was sticking to Teal'c, Kadabra was just behind Daniel with its spoon half-raised like a sword, and Growlithe seemed to be happy pacing along beside Jack.

Still, as interesting as the Pokemon were even to a non-scientist like Jack, for the moment he was more interested in the immediate tactical situation of Hestia and her forces. She only had around a dozen Jaffa left guarding her right now, and the control room consisted of a few assorted control consoles that would provide effective cover if a fight broke out; assuming that Carter could lock down the surrounding doors to stop anyone getting in until they'd done something to prove that the Jaffa's 'god' wasn't anything of the sort, they might have a shot at holding the line here.

"Hey there," Jack smiled grimly at Hestia where she sat on her throne, managing to look frustratingly calm despite the damaged state of her control room. "Any chance you're going to surprise me and stand down for once?"

"You truly believe-?" Hestia began with the mocking tone familiar from other System Lords, before one of her Jaffa was knocked down by a punch from Machoke. In a bleak way, Jack had to give Hestia credit for her response to this sudden turn of events, the Goa'uld practically leaping out of her seat and hurrying for a door to the side of the room even as her Jaffa gathered in front of her. As another selection of Jaffa were forced into retreat by blasts of fire and lightning from Growlithe and Magnemite, Kadabra waved the spoons in its hands and hurled more Jaffa towards opposite walls, leaving SG-1 free to break out their zats and take down most of the stragglers. Amid the chaos of the fight, Jack saw Hestia walk back into the room, now with two new Jaffa on either side of her, these two wearing particularly ornate armour for the standard Jaffa soldier.

"Hey!" the colonel began to call out, before the warning was delivered for him as one of the Jaffa opened his mouth and a stream of flame emerged from it. Fortunately, despite his team's recent successes, there were enough of Hestia's Jaffa between the fire-breather and them for her own troops to get in the way of the planned attack, with the flames actually taking down one of the Jaffa rather than any of Hestia's enemies.

"What the _Hell_?" Sam yelled, staring at the fire-breathing Jaffa in shock (bizarrely, Jack was struck by the thought that he wasn't sure he'd ever heard his second-in-command swear like that before). "How is _that_ possible?"

"A little technology recovered from Nirrti's labs combined with samples taken from those birds you released earlier, naturally," Hestia chuckled, as the other Jaffa raised his hands, which were now crackling with brilliant electrical energy. "I shall collect samples from the most powerful creatures of this world, and splice that genetic information into my chosen warriors; even that monster Anubis would be unable to stand up to such warriors."

"You really think you've got a shot?" Jack countered, falling back on his usual sarcasm to hide his fear at the thought. "I know a couple of guys who've spent time with Anubis; I'm not sure even this kind of oomph would actually hurt him!"

"Are you aware that there are creatures on this planet that would be considered _ghosts_ , human?" Hestia asked mockingly, her two augmented guards standing on either side of her while her remaining regular Jaffa drew a faltering line between their ruler and SG-1's Pokemon allies.

"Excuse me?"

"Hold on…" Daniel said, scanning through the Pokedex for a moment before turning it around to display three purple creatures, two apparently floating and the third very similar to the second one. "Here we are; Gastly, Haunter and Gengar are officially classified as ghost Pokemon."

"Ghosts?" Sam looked at the archaeologist in surprise. "Literally?"

"And those are just the most common ones on this world," Hestia chuckled malevolently. "There are other ghost-types among these creatures, but even as powerful as they are, they are not invulnerable; Anubis is like them if he is like anything in our plane of existence, and there are attacks that can harm these ghosts nevertheless."

"And you really think these things are powerful enough for that?" Jack asked, privately smiling at Hestia's typical need to gloat; she might be trying to be Nirrti, but she was just too caught up in showing off to recognise that psycho scientist's strength of not letting the details slip until she was sure she was in a position of strength. "What works for animals won't definitively work for Mr Dark Side of the Force."

"These are merely the start of my plans, Tau'ri," Hestia said, glaring confidently at Jack. "You have delayed them by depriving me of the other birds for the moment, but once those four have worn each other out with their current conflict, it will not take long for me to recapture them-"

"That is _not_ happening!" Jack said resolutely as he raised his P-90 to point at the Goa'uld.

"Scythe!" Scyther said, raising its bladed arms in an aggressive manner, Machoke and Kadabra taking up position on either side of the bladed green bug as the rest of SG-1 and their Pokemon spread out along their side of the room.

"Do you even _realise_ what you're dealing with here?" Sam looked firmly at Hestia. "These creatures are considered _legends_ by these people; you can't just grab them and not expect any consequences!"

"Why should I care about the consequences to this small world?" Hestia smirked. "I am a god; creatures that are legendary for one planet mean nothing to me."

"Yeah, let's say we have a different of opinion and conclude that we'd prefer it if the legends stayed home," Jack said, raising the P-90 firmly. "Let's make this simple; you back off now and things don't get _really_ unpleasant."

"Kill them," Hestia said, raising her hand, her Jaffa raising their staff weapons and beginning to fire while Hestia turned to walk down another corridor on the other side of the room. The first wave of staff blasts were deflected as Kadabra raised its spoon and some kind of energy shield appeared between SG-1 and the attacking Jaffa, giving the humans and their Pokemon allies time to retreat to a position behind some of the other consoles.

"OK, this is _not_ gonna work!" Jack glanced anxiously over at the rest of the team. "Jackson, get Kadabra to create a path to that door and then take Carter and Magnet-ball after Heathy; the rest of us will hold the line here!"

"Right!" Daniel said, glancing over at Kadabra. "Can you?"

" _Dabra_!" Kadabra yelled, raising its spoon in a sweeping motion, sending the four Jaffa nearest the door flying off to either side. With the flying Jaffa sending the other Jaffa off-balance as well, there was enough of a gap for the four members of Jack's impromptu mini-task-force to charge through the door after Hestia, Sam and Daniel taking a couple of pot-shots at the disorientated Jaffa as they ran. Jack was fairly sure those last shots had taken down a couple of the fallen Jaffa, which at least gave the rest of them less to deal with, but there were still those enhanced Jaffa to deal with…

"Scy!" he heard something yell, prompting him to glance anxiously over as he saw the bladed green bug charge towards the Jaffa on the far right of the room. The enhanced Jaffa tried to turn to attack the bug, but Scyther was careful to keep at least one Jaffa between it and the two enhanced, which prompted the enhanced Jaffa to return their attention to Jack and Teal' as they hid behind the console.

 _OK_ , Jack thought, looking anxiously around at his available options, _just under a dozen regular Jaffa and two fanatics enhanced with extra power from their perceived god… then again, Ash and that lot did mention some stuff about type advantages that might help_ …

"Hey, Staryu!" he called over at the starfish. "Think you can handle the human torch if we keep the electric guy busy?"

" _Hya_!" the Staryu yelled, firing a Water Gun at the Moltres-enhanced Jaffa, causing steam to emerge from the now-doused flames while the Jaffa scrambled back in a sudden panic. The electric-wielding Jaffa turned to fire a blast at Staryu, but Jack pulled out his zat and fired a quick shot at the glowing Jaffa; the two energy blasts seemed to cancel each other out, so the electric guy wasn't knocked out, but when the target was still sent staggering backwards, Jack decided he'd take what he could get.

"Don't suppose you remember what's good against electricity?" he glanced over at Teal'c, the two members of SG-1 taking another couple of shots at Hestia's forces before ducking for cover behind another reasonably-intact console.

"I believe I heard that Ground Pokemon were unaffected by electric attacks and Water and Flying Pokemon were particularly vulnerable to them, but that is all I can say for certain," Teal'c responded, glancing briefly over the console before looking back at Jack. "Staryu is concentrating its efforts on the fire-wielder, and Scyther is focusing on the Jaffa; I believe our best strategy for the electric-wielder is if Machoke and I confront him."

"…Fair enough," Jack nodded in grim acknowledgement before looking down at Growlithe. "Care to help me and the bug with the general rabble?"

" _Grow_!" the dog Pokemon barked in what Jack would interpret as agreement.

" _Scy_ ," Scyther nodded, leaning briefly on one claw before it stood up, its blades spread in preparation.

"OK then," Jack smiled, checking his ammo before indicating the area over the console. "Let's go!"

With that command, Jack leapt out from behind the console, laying down a spread of covering fire while Teal'c launched a quick series of shots from his staff weapon and Growlithe launched bursts of fire at the nearest Jaffa. As a couple of the enemy dropped their heated staff weapons, Teal'c was able to take them down while they were reeling from the heat, and Jack scored a shot on another, but that still left them with seven Jaffa and the main threat of the two enhanced, each of whom were clearly ready for their next Pokemon-acquired attack-

One moment, the enhanced Jaffa were looking mockingly at Jack and Teal'c, their mouth and hands respectively glowing with fire and electricity as they prepared to launch their next blow, and then both were sent reeling back, the once-controlled warriors screaming in agony as their powers apparently turned on themselves, their own flesh burning and sparking as it turned red, the veins on their bodies standing out intently, before they fell to the ground. Jack only needed the glimpse of water leaking out of their mouths to realise what was happening, moments before the Jaffas' bodies melted and collapsed into what Jack knew couldn't be water even as he lacked a better term for it, the stuff that had once been solid matter now nothing but two large puddles.

As the Jaffa stared at the pools that had once been their comrades, Jack took advantage of the opportunity to fire a quick array of bullets at the distracted Jaffa. He wasn't proud of exploiting an enemy's distraction like that, but when faced with this kind of opposition, he didn't have time to try and play fair. With the enhanced Jaffa no longer a threat, the Pokemon lashed out at the remaining shocked Jaffa, Scyther slashing through the enemy's staff weapons while blasts from Staryu and Growlithe knocked the disarmed Jaffa down for the count, Machoke and Teal'c following it up by striking the downed Jaffa in the heads to ensure they stayed unconscious. In a few moments, the battle was over, leaving a mixture of dead and unconscious Jaffa lying on the floor while Jack, Teal'c and their Pokemon allies took in the situation.

"OK," Jack said, breaking the silence as he stared at the pools of biological mush that had been two humanoid beings a few moments ago. "It's official; no matter how often you see some of this stuff, that does _not_ stop being gross."

"This is only the second time we have witnessed such events, O'Neill," Teal'c observed.

"It's gross, T'; don't overthink it," Jack noted, before he glanced around and sighed before looking down at Growlithe. "Getting back to the important stuff, don't suppose you can sniff out where the others went?"

" _Grow_!" the dog-thing barked, before it closed its eyes and its nose twitched for a few moments, followed by it running eagerly down another corridor. Jack quickly hurried after it, Teal'c and the rest of the Pokemon close behind him, SG-1's leader praying that the other half of his team were still safe…

* * *

Considering everything else that she'd encountered on this mission so far, Sam supposed she shouldn't have been completely surprised to be cut off by a force field when she was literally just outside her destination. Even through the electric-blue haze of the force field, it was easy to see Hestia in the large room on the other side, large portions of wall lost in the crash to reveal that this part of the ship was right up against the hull, Hestia herself sitting in a large thing that Sam didn't like the look of.  
  
It might look like some weird cross between a sextant and a telescope with a seat in the middle, but if it wasn't some kind of weapon, than everything Sam had learned about the Goa'uld over the last seven years was completely wrong…  
  
"You came to witness my victory?" Hestia looked at the door with a mocking grin, the Goa'uld queen sitting casually in the gun's control chair in defiance of SG-1's usual expectations regarding a female Goa'uld's willingness to take action.  
  
"Actually, we came to stop it," Sam glared firmly at her. "You already started a major environmental catastrophe just by trying to capture two of these things; do you honestly think you can get away with abducting any more?"  
  
"I can take what I need from this world once I have acquired the other Legendaries from this world," the Goa'uld said confidently. "What do I care if the lesser die; the Legendaries will live long enough to become part of this collection."  
  
"With that gun?" Daniel said.  
  
"I already used this gun to capture Zapdos when it was prepared for a fight; I hardly think I will require much effort to adjust it to contain Lugia while it is occupied with my other future pets," Hestia chuckled, before she settled back into the control seat of the gun.  
  
"NO!" Sam yelled, slamming her hand in frustration against the wall, only for her eyes to widen in surprise when a panel fell off the wall to reveal a series of familiar crystals and wires behind it.  
  
"Oh my God…" she said, smiling as she looked at Daniel. "This ship _must_ be damaged; that gave us access to _exactly_ what I needed right now!"  
  
"You mean those-?" Daniel asked.  
  
"Are the control crystals for this forcefield," Sam nodded, her smile broadening as she looked at the floating grey Pokemon beside her. "Magnemite, could you give this a shock?"  
  
"Magne," Magnemite 'nodded', shooting a burst of electricity at the crystals. There was a blue spark from the impact, and then the force field in front of them shut down. Even as Sam led the foursome into the room, Hestia was already firing her large gun at Lugia, the strange ring-devices she had used to trap Zapdos encircling the large white bird.  
  
" _No_!" Sam yelled, her eyes widening in horror as she saw a small figure still on the bird's back, turning towards Hestia with a fierce glare on her face as she raised her P-90 and fired it. The initial shots harmlessly struck against Hestia's personal force field, but the System Lord's satisfied smile faded when Kadabra pointed its spoon at her, surrounding her with a blue glow before she was practically torn out of her seat and sent hurtling towards the ceiling.  
  
"You _dare_ -?" Hestia began, doing her best to sound outraged in her indignation despite her situation, before Kadabra waved the spoon again, swiftly sending her 'bouncing' back and forth between what remained of the walls, ceiling and floor of the battered room. Hestia was still clearly protected by her personal shield, but coupled with a few quick electric shocks launched by Magnemite, the shield soon vanished, prompting Kadabra to drop the now-visibly-battered Hestia to the ground in front of SG-1.  
  
"You have two choices," Sam said, her P-90 and Daniel's pistol now aimed at Hestia as the Goa'uld glared up at them, the glare made all the more ferocious by her bleeding mouth. "Surrender now, or die."  
  
" _Never_!" Hestia roared, leaping towards the two humans and their new allies, only for the leap to be 'interrupted' by a series of bullets striking her mid-jump, sending her falling back to the ground, eyes wide and mouth opened in a silent scream of rage. For a moment, the room was silent before something leapt out of Hestia's mouth, moving rapidly through the air towards Sam before an orange-and-black blur grabbed it mid-leap.  
  
"Growlithe?" Sam looked at the small fire-breathing dog in surprise, the creature standing in front of her and Daniel with a scowl on its face and a Goa'uld symbiote between its teeth, the snake-thing twitching in a manner that made it clear it was injured at best.  
  
" _Nice_ ," Jack said, nodding in approval at the dog, before his gaze shifted to look at the falling Lugia, which was suddenly gathering golden energy around its mouth as it struggled against the strange triangle-things that had now enveloped it. "Aw, crap… _get out of here_!"  
  
"Take down that wall!" Sam yelled, pointing at the nearest outward-facing wall. Magnemite and Staryu launched a dual blast at the wall, Magnemite's electricity enhancing the force of the water blast, followed by a powerful blast of flame from Growlithe as it dropped the corpse of the now-smouldering symbiote that was once Hestia, culminating in Kadabra throwing a crouching Machoke through the damaged wall.  
  
As the wall shattered under that force, SG-1 and the Pokemon dived for safety, running down the ha'tak's shattered exterior for the second time that day as Lugia's powerful beam struck the side of the ship, the strange energy beam tearing through the already-battered ha'tak before sweeping through the air as Lugia turned its head. Jack thought he saw the attack knock down Moltres and Zapdos as they approached Lugia to continue the fight, but he didn't have time to look for Articuno as he focused all his efforts on running for the ground before the latest round of internal explosions destroyed the part of the ha'tak they were currently running along. As soon as their feet were on solid ground, Jack focused all his efforts on getting his team back to the coastline so they could get back on Lapras and get back to the main island; he wasn't going to abandon the rest of their Pokemon allies on this dump, but the sooner they could get back to the shrine, they sooner he could get back out there to look for Ash and Lugia…


	11. The Guardian's Song

"What happened to the Jaffa?" Daniel asked, once SG-1 were all sitting on Lapras's back and heading towards the island as fast as possible.

"Took most of 'em down the old-fashioned way, and the augmented ones followed the example set by Nirrti's lot and collapsed into puddles of stuff," Jack said, even as he kept his gaze focused on the ocean ahead, trying to ignore the distant tornados. The path they'd cut through the ice hadn't completely refrozen by the time they got back to the ocean, but once Jack had re-released Snorlax, the sound of the collapsing cliff behind them had roused the large Pokemon from its sleep. Understanding Jack's plan without needing to share it, Growlithe had leapt onto Lapras's head while Machoke and Kadabra took up position on Snorlax's back, the psychic Pokemon apparently using its mental powers to keep itself and Machoke stable despite the precarious nature of their 'boat', leaving Staryu to swim alongside while Scyther and Magnemite moved through the air as a kind of 'honour guard'. "Evidently, Hesty and Nitty both dived in to play with the new toys without really paying much attention to the tricky details."

"I… see," Daniel said, looking solemnly around the frozen ocean before his eyes settled on something. "Hey; look over there!"

"What-?" Jack began, before he followed Daniel's gaze and realised what the archaeologist had noted; a large hole in the ice, with a small figure floating in the middle of it. "Is that Ash?"

"I think it is…" Sam said, before raising her voice. "Snorlax, head that way; Ash needs help!"

To Snorlax's credit, despite its great size, it turned around and began to swim towards its trainer at a surprising rate. Without prompting from its riders, Lapras turned around to follow the larger Pokemon, the other creatures changing direction or doing the psychic equivalent of tightening their grip as they followed it. They made a good pace, but they were still a fair distance from where Ash had fallen when they saw another figure join Ash and begin pulling him back towards the island, even if the red hair made the figure in question very distinctive.

"Is that… Misty?" Sam asked, leaning slightly forward to try and squint at the figure next to Ash. "With… some kind of fish?"

"It must be another Pokemon," Daniel noted, his hand briefly reaching for the Pokedex before he decided against checking it in these circumstances. "Look, she's already getting back to Shamouti; Snorlax, head back to the shore, but don't get too close to Misty!"

Snorlax let out a brief roar in response and then changed direction once again, heading towards the shore of Shamouti Island at an angel and distance that prevented the risk that Ash and Misty would get caught in the backwash. In a few moments, the two groups had reached the shore, SG-1 quickly returning their loaned Pokemon to their balls before hurrying over to where Misty was now anxiously giving Ash CPR, Tracey and Pikachu anxiously crouched beside them and Goldeen now absent. The returning quartet of travellers noticed Tracey rolling a rope around his arm that looked like it was still wet, but there was no time to wonder what the rope had been for when Ash was clearly in bad shape.

"Is he-?" Sam began, before Ash suddenly sat sharply up.

"The sphere!" the young boy yelled, anxiously checking his pockets before he pulled out a third glass orb, this one glowing a brilliant blue.

"You got it?" Jack smiled in relief.

"Yeah…" Ash said, nodding grimly before urgently getting back to his feet, only to stagger back to the ground.

"Whoa there, kid-" Jack began, reaching over to try and help.

"Let me go!" Ash said, urgently pushing the colonel aside as he began to walk up the hill towards the shrine. "I gotta do this!"

As much as SG-1 hated to leave anyone alone in a situation like this, they also all recognised Ash's point; beyond the potentially prophetic and genetic circumstances that made him the only person who could place those orbs in the first place, there were some things people just _had_ to do on their own. Even as Ash occasionally slipped on the now-melting snow and stumbled climbing up the hill, SG-1, Misty, Tracey, and the new Pokemon just watched him climb, ready to step in if he desperately needed help but otherwise respecting his decision. After a few moments of frantic climbing that was only slowed by Ash's weakened state, the group finally reached the shrine at the top of the island, where Melody and Slowking were waiting.

"Have you brought the final treasure, Ash?" the pink creature asked, Ash putting on a final burst of speed to reach the central shrine.

"Here it is, Slowking," Ash confirmed, offering the shell-headed Pokemon the third sphere.

"You must be the one to place it," Slowking said, turning to point to the shrine.

With that instruction, Ash walked up to the altar and placed the third treasure in its place. As soon as the orb joined its fellows in the stone shrine, all three of them glowed even brighter, followed by a strange green light emerging from under the shrine. Daniel just had time to see some kind of writing under the snow before the light became even brighter, the snow vanishing to reveal a stone floor with small channels between more tablets covered in the Ancient-esque writing of the tablet of the prophecy, surrounded by red floors. Once the snow had vanished, strange green water flowed out from under the altar, flowing along the channels to surround the columns around the shrine, which went from stone to a crystalline structure as soon as the water made contact.

"Impressive," Teal'c observed, the children all staring at the spectacle in awe.

"But… even if we have the treasures, what about the song?" Daniel asked, hating to break the moment as he looked anxiously at Slowking. "Hestia shot Lugia down…"

"Which doesn't mean that I can't play the song on _this_ ," Melody smiled, pulling out her ocarina and walking up to the altar, the area where Ash had placed the treasures now glowing with a green light so intense its interior couldn't be seen, where she put the instrument to her lips and began to play. Each time she hit a note, one of the columns around the group lit up with a subtle green glow, the columns alternating in pattern as to which one lit up as the song continued.

"How _is_ it doing this?" Jack glanced over at Sam, keeping his voice low to avoid distracting Melody as he indicated the shrine. "I mean, maybe this thing put on a quick blast of the heat to melt the snow, but the stone-to-crystal bit and everything after that?"

"I can't explain how the water affected the columns without closer analysis, but we know that certain sound frequencies can have a resonance pattern that affects types of crystals," Sam noted, staring around the shrine uncertainly even as the tornados beyond the horizon began to vanish and the water from the shrine flowed over their feet towards the cliff-edge. "If opera singers on Earth can shatter glass with the right frequency, it's not impossible to assume that the notes of Lugia's song can have some kind of impression on the crystals that were used to make these columns…"

"Which might also explain _that_ ," Daniel said, pointing out at the ocean with a smile, the green water spreading across the frozen ocean far more rapidly than should have been possible. Following the direction of the archaeologist's finger, SG-1 and their new associates smiled as they saw the three legendary birds flying through the sky, peaceful and calm in a sharp contrast to their previous hostility towards each other, followed by the clouds above parting to reveal brilliant sunlight that was far more in keeping with the tropical conditions Sam had identified in her initial survey of the area around the Stargate. As the song continued, a new whirlpool emerged from the now-melted ocean and Lugia leapt into the sky once again, the large white bird joining the other three as they made soothing coos to each other in sharp contrast to their earlier angry squawks and screeches. As they watched, Lugia flew down to the shrine and bent its neck, indicating that Ash should get onto its back, the young man taking the offer and climbing onto the bird with Pikachu before the 'Great Guardian' flew back into the sky.

As Melody continued playing her song, SG-1 were treated to a truly exceptional sight as a massive arch of water rose from the ocean, stretching out across the sky like an airborne river with no sign of anything keeping it up.

"OK," Jack nodded as he stared in awe at the arch of water, vaguely aware of the non-legendary Pokemon flying and swimming away from the islands underneath the arch. " _That_ is impressive."

"I… I've got nothing," Sam said, shaking her head as she stared at the brilliant sky, occupied by four large elemental birds and an impossible airborne river. "I mean, crystals reacting to sound made sense, but _this_ …"

"Yeah, when you're at a loss for words, I _know_ we're dealing with something weird," Jack observed, his gaze shifting to the distant remains of Hestia's ship on Lightning Island. It was obviously hard to be sure of anything at this distance, but it looked like the explosives he'd planted earlier had been fairly effective, as the ha'tak's structure had completely fallen in on itself, although a small set of fires in places that definitely hadn't been burning earlier left Jack speculating that Moltres or Zapdos had just played their part in dealing with that thing while he was looking at something else.

As the last of the general Pokemon departed, the mysterious airborne river 'fell' back into the ocean, Lugia going for another loop around the islands as the other three birds split off from each other and began to fly towards their own islands. As the sun began to set in the distance, Lugia returned to the shrine and allowed Ash to climb off his back, the large bird and the young boy looking at each other with a particularly solemn expression on Ash's face as Lugia stood at its full height.

" _The Beast of the Sea has been tamed_ ," Lugia said, staring at Ash before turning its head to look at SG-1. " _The fate of the world could not have been in better hands, for all of you_."

"Uh… glad we could help," Daniel said, nodding awkwardly at the giant bird. "Sorry we couldn't stop it earlier…"

" _That you were here at all is what is important_ ," Lugia said, its telepathic voice surprisingly calming despite Jack's usual distaste for things in his head. " _As I told the Chosen One, it only takes one person to make a difference, even if they do not know what it is… and I see that you have friends that understand that already_."

Looking in the direction of Lugia's glance, Jack smiled slightly as he saw the four new Pokemon standing off to the side of the shrine, Magnemite floating idly in the air around Kadabra and Machoke's heads while Growlithe sat on its hind legs between the others.

"Yeah… _that_ was unexpected," he noted, glancing back at Lugia. "You have anything to do with them showing up?"

" _Nothing_ ," Lugia affirmed. " _They sensed your peril and acted on their own accord; as you will find, we Pokemon are very sensitive to the world when it faces such peril_."

"They just… _knew_?" Sam looked at Lugia in surprise.

"Well, we've always known that animals back on Earth can sense imminent earthquakes and the like better than we can," Daniel noted. "Pokemon knowing we needed this kind of help… it's bigger, I'll grant you that much, but the basic principle is still the same."

" _Indeed_ ," Lugia said, bowing its head at the archaeologist. " _Your aid in this matter might have been comparatively small, but it was significant, and our world owes you much_."

"It is what we do," Teal'c said solemnly.

" _And in return for that, I give you this_ ," Lugia said. " _You will learn the secrets of our world when you explore the area around the Circle of Arceus_."

With those final words, the giant bird flapped its wings once and flew up into the sky once again, the bird swiftly diving back into the sea and vanishing from view.

"Well, that was an… interesting experience," Jack said.

"Talking of interesting experiences," Melody said, looking curiously at Jack, "what happened to that 'Hestia' person who captured us?"

"She's dead."

"Dead?" the four teens looked at SG-1 sharply.

"You _killed_ her?" Misty said incredulously. "But-"

"I appreciate that it's probably more… extreme than what you're used to doing when dealing with threats, but we didn't have a choice," Sam said, looking apologetically between the four children. "You have to understand that Hestia literally wouldn't give up her attempts to take this planet for her own, and she was too egotistical and self-centred to ever see you or Pokemon as equals; the only way to stop the threat she posed was to kill her before she could so much as show _any_ of the other System Lords anything she'd found on this planet, even if it was another of her enhanced Jaffa."

"Jaffa?" Ash said, pausing for a moment in confusion.

"Like… Teal'c?" Tracey said. "Soldiers for her army?"

"Except that she took DNA samples from Moltres and Zapdos and used that to enhance them to give them the ability to use Pokemon attacks," Daniel explained. "We got lucky in that the Jaffas' systems couldn't cope with the transformation, but if she'd been able to carry out further experiments… well, she could have solved that issue and created a nearly unstoppable army."

"Ah," Ash said, looking particularly uncomfortable at that thought. "I… take it we don't want to know what happened to them?"

"Good call, kid," Jack nodded grimly at the young boy.

Ash Ketchum might have just saved the world from a bizarre environmental catastrophe involving three elemental birds, but as far as Jack was concerned, there were things that nobody of Ash's age should have to think about, and witnessing a couple of Jaffa dissolving into genetic goop was one of those things.


	12. A Parent, Professors, and Secrets

"Ash!" a voice suddenly called out from behind them. Turning around, SG-1 and their new allies saw two women and an older man climbing down from the mountain behind the shrine, the older man and one of the women wearing white lab coats (although Jack noted that the woman was wearing a very tight red top under the coat, while the man was in a more casual red shirt and dark trousers), while the other woman was wearing a purple skirt and a pink top under a thigh-length light brown coat, her dark brown hair in a loose ponytail.

"Mom?" Ash looked at the brown-haired woman in surprise.

" _Mom_?" Jack looked at the woman in surprise as she ran up to her apparent son, suddenly hoping that the woman wasn't going to blame him for her son being in trouble; after some of the things he'd seen, it would just be embarrassing to get killed by an angry mother.

"All right, start talking," the woman said, running up to glare at Ash.

"You are in big trouble, Mister."

"But Mrs Ketchum," Misty said, raising an awkward hand. "Ash just helped save the whole world."

"Oh, he did, did he?" Mrs Ketchum said, even as her manner softened. "Well… I could have lost my whole world."

Hearing Ash's mother say those words, Jack couldn't shake off the sudden memory of Sara the moment after she'd learned what had happened to Charlie, her world just as devastated as his while she had even less training to cope with it (as much as anyone could cope with something this terrible)…

"Every day I worry about you and wonder if you're all right," Mrs Ketchum said, looking at Ash with the faint gleam of tears in her eyes. "I know I can't stop you… from doing the things you need to do… I just can't help missing you all the time. You're a Pokémon trainer, and that's just how it is… But next time, could you try to save the world a little closer to home?"

Listening to this woman, Jack found himself wondering what kind of life Ash had lived if his mother had this kind of experience with thinking about her son being in danger. The moment he'd heard the shot that had killed Charlie had been the most terrifying moment of his life even _before_ he knew what had happened, and this woman was part of a civilisation where they sent ten-year-old kids out into a world where the kid could theoretically control or confront what was basically a dragon…

"I… guess I could give it a try," Ash said, as the two in lab coats came up behind the other woman.

"And remember," Mrs Ketchum said, her smile becoming warmer, "every day… you're my hero."

"…Thanks, Mom," Ash said, smiling back at her before he remembered something else, looking over at the older man now standing behind his mother. "Oh, Professor Oak, this is Colonel Jack O'Neill, Major Samantha Carter, Doctor Daniel Jackson, and Teal'c; they've got… well, you're going to want to talk to them; they have an _incredible_ story."

"Really?" the old man looked at SG-1 in surprise. "A pleasure to meet you, I'm sure, but what makes your story particularly incredible?"

"Let's start with the fact that we're not from this planet and take it from there," Jack replied nonchalantly.

" _What_?" the three new arrivals said in surprise.

"We came through… well, Melody here told us you might know it as the 'Circle of Arceus'?" Daniel put in.

"The Circle of Arceus?" the other woman asked, prompting Jack to briefly stare at the woman's purple hair before he focused on her words. "I'd heard that it was on Fire Island, but it never seemed relevant to my area of research."

"You're a scientist?" Sam asked.

"Professor Ivy," the woman said, nodding at Sam. "Professor Oak and I are Pokemon researchers, but where Professor Oak focuses on the bonds between trainers and Pokemon, my own research tends to focus on the regional differences in Pokemon physiology."

"Regional differences?" Sam asked.

"Yeah, not that this isn't fascinating, but maybe we can talk about that once we've straightened out what the gate has to do with… well, anything going on here?" Jack put in.

"Gate?" another voice said from further away; Jack was surprised that he hadn't seen the other two men who'd come down the hill, but a quick glance was enough for him to confirm that they were unlikely to be a threat in this situation. "What gate?"

"Who are these people?" Teal'c inquired.

"Uh… the news crew that brought us here from Pallet Town to take a closer look at the environmental anomalies in this area," Professor Oak explained.

"Reporters?" Jack said, rolling his eyes as he turned to look at the men. "OK, just to be sure of the situation here, you guys have a helicopter?"

"Yeah…"

"Good; we'll probably need that to get back to Fire Island, but after that, you guys need to stay put."

"Hey!" the other reporter yelled at Jack. "You can't just-"

"We're dealing with something so massive we haven't even told everyone on _our_ world about it; no offence, but I'm not going to let _anyone_ in the business of spreading the news get a look at this stuff before _we_ know what we're dealing with here," Jack said firmly.

"Your world?" the first man said. "What are-?"

"A matter that has no immediate relevance to the situation facing you at this time," Teal'c put in, stepping forward to stare firmly at the two reporters. "There are secrets and threats that your society is not equipped to deal with at this time, so it is best not to make their knowledge public when there is no need to do so."

It might be a legally tricky area, but after some of Jack's less pleasant encounters with journalists who thought they had a right to talk about the Stargate without considering the consequences, there was something satisfying about being in a position where he could just use Teal'c to make them shut up.

"Secrets and threats?" Professor Oak repeated, looking curiously at the young man who'd just helped to save this world. "What kind of threat are we talking about here, Ash?"

"Uh… this whole thing was caused because an alien who thought she was a god tried to steal the birds for some freaky science experiments?" Ash replied awkwardly.

" _Aliens_?" Mrs Ketchum looked at her son incredulously.

"Long story we'll explain en route," Jack replied.

"That's… fair enough," Ivy nodded in acknowledge at Jack before she looked back at Sam. "In any case, I will admit that I've read about the Circle, but apart from some curiosity about the relevance of Arceus this far from the Sinnoh Region, there was never enough material to take it further…"

"Well," Daniel said, looking at the two professors with a slight smile, "assuming you're all willing, and so long as we don't run the risk of starting this all up again if we go to that island and take care to leave Moltres alone, we might be able to find an answer somewhere."

"You think you can find something that we haven't found before?" Oak looked curiously at Daniel.

"Hey, the guy cracked the mystery of what our Stargate was even for in two weeks when we had it in storage for seventy years and never really cracked it before," Jack smiled at the other professor. "If anyone can find out what the gate means to your planet, it's Danny-boy."

"We're coming too," Ash put in, as he, Misty and Tracey stepped forward.

"You don't-" Jack began.

"This is something about our world's history; I can understand wanting to keep it out of the news, but after what we've seen, don't we have a right to know what it is?" Ash countered.

"He makes a good point, Jack," Daniel looked at his team leader. "I mean, we already relied on Ash's help to deal with something that basically caused by _our_ problem; doesn't he have a right to get a better idea of what drew Hestia here in the first place?"

"Hest-?" one of the news crew began, before a warning glance from Teal'c prompted him to stay silent.

"…Fine," Jack said, taking a moment to think on his options before looking back at the professors. "I'd prefer it if the press guys stay in the chopper once we get there, but so long as we all stick together, you guys care to give us a lift to Fire Island and the benefit of your local experience?"

* * *

When he set foot on Fire Island, Jack was amazed when he glanced at his watch and realised that it had barely been a few hours since they'd last been here. With the kids travelling to the island via Lapras, SG-1 had been able to give the two scientists and Ash's mother a quick crash course on the history of the Stargate and the war against the Goa'uld while they took the helicopter, Teal'c making sure that the news crew and pilot focused on getting it to its destination rather than listening in on the conversation or trying to make discreet notes or recordings. To the professors' credit, they'd been fairly accepting of everything SG-1 had to say on such minimal evidence, even if Jack had seen enough to realise that they were keeping open minds rather than just accepting everything (Delia, by contrast, had constantly glanced at Lightning Island where the remains of Hestia's ship were still just visible if you looked at the right bit). Upon arriving at the island, after confirming that Moltres had returned to the cave that seemed to be its nest, the news team had agreed to stay with the helicopter while the professors helped Sam and Daniel search the area around the Stargate, leaving Jack and Teal'c to keep an eye on Ash, Misty, Tracey and Melody while they all waited by the Stargate.  
  
"So," Misty looked thoughtfully at the Stargate, "this… lets you go to other worlds?"  
  
"With the right address, anyway," Jack said. "It's ridiculously complicated to find any addresses that actually work, but when we know where we're going it's an interesting trip."  
  
"Addresses?" Ash asked.  
  
"The Stargate is operated through the use of this," Teal'c explained, indicating the DHD. "Daniel Jackson has compared it to a telephone."  
  
"A telephone?" Mrs Ketchum- whose first name was apparently Delia- repeated, looking between the DHD and the Stargate in confusion.  
  
"As Danny explained it, idea is that these all represent constellations," Jack explained, indicating a few of the symbols on the DHD. "You dial six in a particular order to represent a specific location in space, and then there's a unique symbol on each gate- in this case, this one," he indicated a symbol that looked like a circle with four lines sticking out of it linking to two half-circles on either side of it, "which acts as… well, the official term is that it's the point of origin, but Daniel compared it to an area code for a telephone that shows the next gate where this one's coming from."  
  
"Incredible…" Tracey said, his notebook suddenly in his hands as he began sketching the Stargate and the DHD in front of him.  
  
"And these things were made… how long ago?" Ash asked, appearing intrigued despite his obvious confusion at the science described.  
  
"Several million years, last we checked," Jack said. "We're still not sure of the exact figures, but-"  
  
"Over here!" Sam's voice suddenly called out. Looking up, the group by the Stargate swiftly ran for the source of Sam's call, finding her standing with Daniel and the professors in front of a familiar circular pattern with three strange pedestals set up around it, each one about waist-high with a smooth top.  
  
"A ring platform?" Jack looked at his teammates in surprise.  
  
"We already knew the Ancients designed these things before the Goa'uld took control of them, Jack," Daniel clarified, before indicating the three pedestals around the ring. "Of course, these things definitely _aren't_ anything we've seen before."  
  
"I think they're meant to serve as a means of access, or maybe even a power supply," Sam explained, indicating the pedestal nearest her. "Look at this."  
  
"Look at-?" Jack began, before he walked up to the pedestal and blinked in surprise at the symbol at the top, displaying a familiar bird inside a circle with its wings spread. "Am I imagining things, or does the bird icon on here look like the icy one?"  
  
"And it's not the only one," Daniel said from his position beside another pedestal. "This one looks like it has an image of Moltres on it, and Zapdos is on the third one."  
  
"But what is this for?" Professor Ivy looked curiously at the archaeologist. "You didn't actually explain that part."  
  
"Well… these rings are linked to the people who originally created the Stargates; if we can get them working, it'll be easier to show you what they're for then just to tell you," Daniel explained, before he indicated the pedestals. "As for these… well, in the absence of any more obvious controls, I have a feeling that these might be some kind of key."  
  
"A key?" Tracey asked.  
  
"Or a power supply?" Melody put in, looking between Sam and Daniel. "But how does that work?"  
  
"Well… that's where it gets complicated," Daniel said. "Based on the symbols on these pedestals, I'm wondering if… well, presumably the birds were meant to be the ones to unlock this if they came here in a spirit of balance, but do we have any way of unlocking these without them?"  
  
"Well… maybe," Ash said, reaching to his belt and taking out two Poke Balls. "If they're just responding to the types rather than the birds themselves, maybe Pikachu, Charizard and Lapras could do something?"  
  
"That thing's Ice?" Jack looked at Ash in surprise.  
  
"Water/Ice; it's a common type combination," Misty clarified.  
  
"Fair enough," Jack nodded, before he looked at Ash. "Well, let's give it a whirl."  
  
"Right," Ash said, tossing out the Poke Balls so that the dragon and the large shelled-seal thing were positioned by the appropriate pedestals while Pikachu leapt onto the pedestal with Zapdos on it. "Pikachu, Charizard, Lapras, hit the pedestals in front of you with Thunderbolt, Flamethrower and Ice Beam, as powerful as you can!"  
  
With that instruction, Charizard and Lapras drew their heads back and then fired the requested attacks at the pedestals, while Pikachu leapt into the air to launch a powerful electric blast at the pedestal it had been squatting on. For a moment it looked as though nothing was going to happen, but then the three pedestals glowed, apparently absorbing the energy of the attacks, followed by the rings glowing even as they remained in the ground.  
  
"Get inside!" Daniel said, smiling enthusiastically as the three Pokemon stopped their attacks, leaving SG-1 and their new local allies free to virtually jump into the middle of the circle, Ash recalling Charizard and Lapras to their Poke Balls just before the rings spread up around them…


	13. The First Seven

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks are due to Zero H Gundam, who came up with a particular idea in this chapter that neatly answers one of the biggest questions in the anime.

Once the glow of transportation faded, Jack smiled in satisfaction at the sight that his two resident geeks had been correct about everything. Not only had the rings worked, but they were now standing in a large laboratory, clearly underground, which had thick layers of dust over a range of consoles that matched what they'd seen of Ancient technology in the past.

" _Whoa_ …" Ash said, staring at the room around them in awe.

" _Dabra_ ," Kadabra confirmed (Jack was amazed that it had become so natural to have those Pokemon with them so shortly after even learning these creatures even existed).

"Fascinating," Professor Oak said, looking at the lab before turning to Sam and Daniel. "Is this what you expected?"

"Well… we hoped, anyway," Sam confirmed, smiling as she stepped out of the ring platform, followed by the rest of the group; Jack noted a small control panel near the rings, which at least suggested that getting out of here would be simple enough. "The only question is what part of this lab will give us the most answers…"

"And how much of them we'll even get," Jack put in, looking over the consoles, trying not to consider how strange it was that having Growlithe sniffing around the consoles while Magnemite floated above them wasn't _that_ strange. "I mean, don't get me wrong, Daniel's been cracking Ancient linguistics even before his time in Oma-land, but this is a bit more than a tablet they left behind…"

"Actually, Jack," Daniel said, looking at his friend with a smile as he stood by one console, "from what I can tell, it looks like the Ancients kept this comparatively simple."

"Huh?" Jack looked at the archaeologist in surprise, only now registering that there was a brief glow coming from the console Daniel was studying.

"This seems to be the main database for this entire project," Daniel said, looking around the room with a smile. "From what I can tell, it seems like… well, it reads like a record of the Ancients' discovery of this world."

"The Ancients?" Professor Ivy asked. "You mentioned them once or twice, but I don't think you've explained who they _are_ …"

"It's our term for the race who created the Stargate, and likely built everything in this laboratory," Sam explained, briefly indicating the technology around them. "We still don't know everything about them, but we know that they were a very advanced race; we've found that they created a wide range of technologies that we're still trying to fully understand."

"And it looks like this was one of their… well, to be blunt, the Ancients who worked here were carrying out research in genetic engineering," Daniel explained. "I'm not sure if they came here on purpose or by chance, but while they were here, they discovered some kind of rift in the dimensions-"

"Some kind of what?" Jack asked.

"I think Thor told me about how those can happen," Sam put in. "It's not quite a black hole, but it's essentially comparable to the idea of generating a wormhole without the relative security of a Stargate; you could essentially open a door to whatever kind of space the wormholes pass through, but you wouldn't have a fixed destination so you wouldn't actually go anywhere."

"And in this case, there were actually factors to consider from inside the rift itself, given that this rift was naturally rather than artificially generated," Daniel put in, smiling slightly as he reached out to another panel. "Specifically, when the Ancients began to examine the rift, they encountered _these_ on… well, call it 'the other side'."

As he tapped a couple of controls, something in the ceiling glowed, and suddenly seven figures appeared in the air above the group. The figure in the centre was recognisable to Daniel as the same llama-like creature he'd dreamed about before this mission, down to the golden ring around its middle, but he also recognised the long Chinese-esque dragon from that same dream, and a few of the other creatures seemed vaguely familiar as well.

"OK, what are these?" Jack asked, indicating the display above them.

"Legendary Pokemon," Professor Oak said, eyes widening as he smiled in awe. "I've read the legends, but I never imagined I'd see them this clearly…"

"Legendary?" Sam looked at the male professor in surprise. "You mean like the Birds?"

"Yes, but far more powerful according to the tales I've heard than any of the birds," Oak replied, as he indicated a small pink creature. "For example, I've only seen a few old carvings, but I believe that creature is Mew, a powerful psychic type believed by some to be the genetic ancestor of all Pokemon."

"Genetic ancestor?" Sam looked at the Mew in surprise. "You mean… you believe all Pokemon are descended from _that_?"

"It's debated, considering that I've never heard of anyone studying a sample of Mew's DNA, but Mew has been said to have the ability to use Transform."

"Like Ditto?" Ash looked at the professor in surprise.

"Ditto?" Jack put in curiously.

"Hold on a minute…" Daniel said, pulling out Ash's Pokedex and tapping a couple of controls.

" **Ditto** ," the small red computer reported, as it displayed a small pink blob. " **The Transform Pokemon. It is able to rearrange the cells of its body and assume any form**."

"So… with Transform, that thing can turn into _any_ other Pokemon?" Sam said, looking at the image in surprise as Daniel closed the Pokedex and handed it apologetically back to Ash. "And it's… it's alive?"

"Dittos can even turn into objects if they want to," Misty put in. "Ash and I encountered one a few months ago that turned into a cannon as well as other Pokemon."

"Huh," Jack said, his raised eyebrows the only sign of how impressed he was at that particular ability.

"If Mew is capable of using that same move, it would certainly explain how it may be the ancestor to all Pokemon," Teal'c observed.

"Shared genetic heritage allowing it to imitate or become pretty much everything else…" Sam nodded thoughtfully. "It would be complicated, of course, but if Mew came from another dimension, maybe it can draw on the power of that dimension to compensate if it becomes something much bigger than itself…"

"OK, so that's the little pink thing; what about the others?" Jack asked.

"I think the thin red Pokemon over there is Deoxys," Professor Ivy put in, looking thoughtfully at another creature. "I've only heard rumours of its existence, but a couple of colleagues mentioned witnessing something matching that description which they referred to a Deoxys, back in their research station in LaRousse City."

"LaRousse City?" Jack asked.

"A technologically advanced city in Hoenn," the professor explained. "It's on a distinctly different continent from Kanto, but I've heard a great deal about it from my colleague Professor Birch, even if I've never had the chance to visit it myself."

"OK," Jack nodded in acknowledgement of Oak's point before he turned back to the display above them. "So, any chance you heard anything about this Dotty that might explain why it's here?"

"Deoxys was meant to come from outer space," Professor Ivy said, before indicating the long green dragon near it. "Actually, so is Rayquaza."

"From space?" Sam looked at the female professor in surprise. "As in you _know_ those two are from another planet?"

"As in Deoxys and Rayquaza are confirmed to live in outer space," Professor Oak clarified with a smile.

"They live in outer space?" Jack looked at the creatures with a new sense of interest. "That's gotta be tricky…"

"Space-dwelling life-forms?" Sam looked at the images of Deoxys and Rayquaza with a new sense of interest. "Incredible…"

"Actually, that makes sense," Daniel said, looking up from his examination of the console. "I missed it earlier, but apparently only Mew and those other four were found on the other side of the rift; Deoxys and Rayquaza lived nearby and inspired some of the scientists' later research, and may have been changed by exposure to it, but they didn't come from the rift itself."

"What is significant about these other four, Professor Oak?" Teal'c asked, indicating the as-yet-unidentified Pokemon with his staff weapon.

"They're from the Sinnoh region," Professor Oak explained, pointing out two figures that put the SG-1 members in mind of dinosaurs in blue and pink-ish armour, a creature that Jack could only describe to himself as a giant centipede with shadowy wings, and a large thing that put him in mind of a llama with a golden ring around its middle. "Dialka, Palkia, Giratina and Arceus, the Creation Trio of Sinnoh."

"Trio?" Jack repeated in surprise. "I'm not the only one seeing four of those things, right?"

He knew that it was odd at best, but when Growlithe barked, Jack could have sworn that the fiery dog was agreeing with him.

"Legendary Pokemon often come in trios, such as the birds, but they also have a 'Trio Master', much like Lugia was the master of the Trio for the legendary birds," the professor explained. "In this case… well, I will admit that Sinnoh legends aren't my strongest point, but from what I recall, Dialga and Palkia are said to be able to control time and space, Giratina has its own existence in another dimension, and Arceus is… well, it's said to be essentially the creator of the world."

"The creator?" Jack looked at the old man in surprise. "OK, I guess I'm sorry in advance if this sounds really rude, but you're saying that your world basically sees a llama-thing as God?"

"Strictly speaking, the legends say that Arceus was the one who created the world as a whole, including the Pokemon and us, and even chose these other Pokemon to rule time, space, the distortion world, the seas, the skies… well, everything."

"Which does not work," Teal'c stated.

"Well," Daniel put in, "from what I'm reading here, it's actually not as big a stretch as you'd think."

"It's not?" Jack looked at the archaeologist in surprise.

"I'm obviously not saying that Arceus created this entire planet, and there's not enough information here to be sure if he created whatever other realm the rest of the… Creation Trio… come from, but from what I've found here… basically, learning about these seven Pokemon inspired the Ancients to create the rest on this planet."

"Uh… when you say these 'Ancients' created the rest…" Ash began uncertainly.

"I mean that discovering that creatures like Arceus inspired the Ancients to begin the work that would create virtually every other Pokemon on this planet."

"…what?" Professor Oak looked at Daniel after a moment's stunned silence.

"You're saying… these Ancients found these seven Pokemon… and used that to create the rest of them?" Misty looked between the projection and the archaeologist incredulously. "I… I don't know if _how_ or _why_ is the right question right now?"

"Why is the easiest one to answer; from what I'm reading here, it was more based on the idea that they wanted to see if they _could_ do it," Daniel explained. "The Ancients were apparently in a fairly stable period of their society at this point, with the Goa'uld not a significant threat yet and no sign of any references to whatever plague wiped them out before they had to learn how to Ascend, so they had time to… well, they had time to indulge their own interests."

"Indulge their interests?" Tracey repeated, staring at the archaeologist incredulously. "You're saying that… these 'Ancients'… created Pokemon just because they _could_?"

"There might be something more to it, but that's the best I can give you right now," Daniel nodded. "It looks like their experiments also prompted them to move the Stargate and this research facility to this island; it was on a more major continent at first, but when the Ancients realised how powerful the Pokemon they'd created could be, they moved the Stargate to a more isolated area so that they could still visit this planet while discouraging casual visitors."

"And they thought here was the safest place?" Jack asked.

"It makes sense, sir," Carter pointed out. "Moltres would be a good defence against casual visitors even before you take the geographical isolation into account, but it's unlikely it could ever generate a hot enough flame to damage the Stargate, while Zapdos's electricity could have overloaded the DHD, and we know from experience that ice isn't good for the systems."

"Fair point," Jack conceded, before he looked around the room uncertainly. "OK, so assuming the stuff about Mew and Arceus is accurate, I guess that explains where these Ancients got the idea to create more Pokemon in the first place, but where did they come up with the idea for all those types?"

"There's some stuff here about Arceus inspiring the types, but I'm just not sure what they mean by that…"

"Actually," Professor Ivy put in, looking at the image of Arceus with a thoughtful smile, "there isanother detail about Arceus that might clear that question up."

"What?" Daniel looked curiously at the female professor.

"According to a legend I read," the female professor explained, "part of Arceus's powers comes from its possession of the life-plates, mysterious plates imbued with a strange form that energy that grant it the ability to control and wield the attack types of virtually any other Pokemon."

"Which means…?" Sam asked.

"Which means that Arceus was able to essentially be every single type of Pokemon in existence, if it wanted," the professor explained.

"So," Sam looked at Ivy with an understanding smile, "you're thinking that, if Arceus possessed those plates anyway, _before_ the other Pokemon were created… maybe it essentially inspired the idea of giving Pokemon different types?"

"With the Ancients creating different types of Pokemon based on the energy of those plates," Ivy nodded. "It's obviously just a theory, but-"

"Hey, if it wasn't for theories, we wouldn't have gotten Earth's Stargate working in the first place," Jack shrugged. "Trust me, we can work with theories."

"It does put us in a bit of a chicken-and-egg situation if we start wondering if the Ancients created certain Pokemon based on local myths or if the myths were built up around those Pokemon, but it might be worth going over these files in more detail later," Daniel said, his brow furrowing as he studied the information in front of him before he looked back at their local allies. "This might seem like a strange question, but… do you have anyone in this world who takes particular responsibility for taking care of Pokemon?"

"What do you mean?" Tracey asked.

"There's some reference here to the Ancients ensuring that the Pokemon would be protected by genetically engineering two… groups, is the best term I can find for what they're saying here… to take on that responsibility," Daniel explained. "There are reference to a few terms that don't _exactly_ exist in English, but from what I can understand, it looks like the Ancients created one group of people to make sure that the Pokemon remain in good health, and the other group would be responsible for making sure nobody abused and manipulated the Pokemon themselves…"

"So… one group heals Pokemon, and the other one protects them?" Misty looked at Ash with wide eyes. "You don't think…?"

"Maybe," Ash nodded uncertainly. "I mean, I haven't really thought about it for a while, but the entire family going into the same roles…"

"Not to mention them looking alike," Tracey put in with a smile.

"Who are we talking about?" Jack asked.

"Nurse Joy and Officer Jenny," Ash said.

"And they are?" Sam asked.

"Nurse Joy runs the Pokemon Centre that treats injured Pokemon and Officer Jenny deals with any Pokemon-related crimes," Ash explained.

"Where?" Teal'c asked.

"Everywhere."

"Uh… could you clear that up?" Jack asked. "When you say 'everywhere'…?"

"He means that basically every city and town in our world with a Pokemon centre and a sufficiently high crime rate have a Nurse Joy and Officer Jenny," Professor Oak confirmed.

"And they all look alike," Ash confirmed.

"Hold on; all of them?" Jack looked sharply at Ash. "As in they're all… what's the term for multiple twins?"

"It's… not that simple," Misty noted awkwardly. "I mean, the Joy on Valencia Island here in the archipelago is the second cousin of the sister-in-law of the Joy in Saffron City back in Kanto, and she looks _exactly_ like the Saffron City Nurse Joy and every other Joy we've met."

"…Yeah, that's a really freaky coincidence at best," Jack nodded, before he looked over at Professor Oak. "And none of you ever wondered about that?"

"It's just… one of those things that we've never thought about," Oak said, looking surprisingly awkwardly at the colonel. "I mean, Nurse Joys and Officer Jennys have been part of our world for so long… I confess, I never even really wondered about how they were all so similar to each other…"

"Really?" Jack looked incredulously at the professor. "You _never_ wondered-"

"Sir," Sam cut the colonel off, "how often have we encountered cultures that just haven't thought about the anomalies in their way of life because it's natural to them?"

"Indeed," Teal'c pointed out. "As I have observed on various occasions in your works of literature, O'Neill, 'strange' is a matter of perspective."

"Right…" Jack nodded in tentative acknowledgement of the Jaffa's point before he turned back to Daniel. "So what now?"

"Now?" the rest of the room said virtually all at once.

"I mean, it's all fascinating, don't get me wrong, but what do we do with it?" Jack shrugged. "Beyond the obvious detail of making sure nobody in the snake pit can get their hands on any of these Pokemon to try and pick up where Hesty got cut off, what do we do ourselves?"

"Bury the Stargate."

Jack wasn't surprised to hear that from Daniel, but he had to admit that he was slightly caught off-guard to hear Sam saying it at the same time.

"You're sure?" he looked at the other two in surprise.

"Sir," Sam said firmly, "there is no way we can risk trying to get Pokemon involved in our war."

"She's right, Jack," Daniel put in, indicating Kadabra, Growlithe, Machoke and Magnemite as they watched the humans talking. "I'm not saying I'm not grateful for their help, but the fact is that they _chose_ to help us; they're obviously intelligent enough that we can't just… take some of them off-planet and try and point them at the Goa'uld."

"And that is before we consider the risk of further Goa'uld becoming aware of the existence of these creatures," Teal'c added. "This world was fortunate enough to benefit from our arrival at the same moment as Hestia on this occasion, but this is simply the part of this planet that is fortunate enough to be the location of the Stargate. Should another Goa'uld discover the coordinates of this world and visit another area, it is unlikely that things would play out as well as they have on this occasion."

"…Point," Jack conceded, shaking his head in frustration. "Typical; we find something cool and we have to keep it secret…"

"Which isn't the same as saying you have to leave us completely," Professor Oak noted with a tentative smile.

"Huh?"

"I understand and appreciate your desire to keep us safe from the wider universe, but at the same time it would be unfair to completely deprive you of the chance to learn more about our world, just as I'm sure I am not alone in wanting to learn more about the wonders you've seen out there," Professor Oak explained. "What I was thinking was that we could work out some means of protecting this… Stargate… from being accessed by anyone who shouldn't be aware of what makes our world so unique, and in return you could provide some people with a better understanding of everything in this lab, as well as all the historical details you've told us about so far, while we tell your people more about our world."

"Set up a long-term team here for research purposes…" Sam nodded thoughtfully as she looked over at Jack. "It could work, sir; we've set up a few offworld research sites in the past, and in this case we can justify it to the Pentagon as providing us with a ready-made lab without needing to tell anyone else about the Pokemon."

"It may also be possible to construct an Iris to increase the security of this planet," Teal'c observed.

"Iris?" Delia looked at the Jaffa curiously.

"It's a defence we have on our 'gate back on Earth," Sam explained. "Long story short, it's a metal shield that closes over the Stargate every time a wormhole's dialled, and unless someone transmits a pre-selected code through the wormhole, the Iris remains closed and the person trying to use the Stargate…"

"Think bug on a windshield," Jack put in.

"Oh God," Misty said, raising one hand to her mouth at the image.

"Look, none of us are exactly comfortable with it, but there's no better way to keep the Stargate secure against enemies trying to use it," Daniel said, even as he looked in understanding at the young girl. "We'll need to talk about this with our superiors back on Earth, but if you're open to us setting up a base here…"

"I think I could persuade my family to offer some discreet local support," Melody put in with a semi-teasing smile. "And on top of that, you've got a few willing guards here already."

Jack didn't have to ask what the brunette meant when he glanced over at the four Pokemon who had come to their aid against Hestia, Growlithe offering up a friendly bark in his direction that Jack couldn't help but smile at.

This had definitely been a particularly strange mission, but it had at least been strange for good reasons rather than bad ones… and, even though he'd never admit it even to the rest of the team, he was interested to see what the science team would find out about this fascinating new world.


	14. An Unexpected Invitation

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A jump forward by a few weeks, with this scene taking place a short while after the events of "Lifeboat" for SG-1 (taking some inspiration from another fic I read a while back regarding how that storyline was resolved) and basically starting the night before Ash's battle with Drake in Pummelo Stadium

In Jack's long experience of life in the armed forces, when a superior officer called you into work several hours early for an important meeting, it was unlikely to be good news, particularly after the events of the last few days.

It wasn't that he wasn't happy that they'd been able to help the Talthuns get to their home planet ahead of schedule, and he was particularly relieved that Thor had been able to help them get their deceased friends back by cloning their bodies (apparently the stasis chambers had preserved their bodies enough that making one clone this one time wouldn't put anyone at risk of the Asgards' current genetic issues), but after the close call Daniel had suffered during this last mission, Jack thought General Hammond had agreed they needed a break.

That said, when he walked into the conference room and saw Hammond smiling warmly at the rest of SG-1, far more relaxed than if he was announcing the latest imminent crisis, Jack was prepared to consider that he might have been wrong about the reason for this kind of call just once.

"So, what's up?" he asked as he sat down in his usual position at the table.

"We just received a message from the research team on Fire Island."

"Fire Is- as in the island where Moltres lived?" Daniel looked at the general with new interest.

"Precisely," General Hammond nodded at Daniel.

"Is something wrong?" Sam asked. They'd spent a day or two going over the technology in the outpost while making arrangements with Melody's family to help supply the research team with food and other essentials without needing to rely on the Stargate, and she hadn't found any sign that there was anything immediately dangerous in the lab, but that didn't mean she couldn't have missed something.

"Not as reported," Hammond smiled reassuringly at the major. "Actually, it was a personal request from a young woman called Melody; I understand you met her during the mission?"

"Yeah, she's the daughter of the family who're helping us keep the place together," Jack nodded. "What did she want?"

"Apparently your young friend, Mr Ketchum, is about to compete against the Head Gym Leader of the Orange Archipelago; I take it that means something significant?"

"Think of it as winning a local competition, sir," Jack explained. "As they explained it to us, Pokemon trainers can compete in these 'Pokemon League' things for various regions on the planet, going to different cities to challenge local experts in contests and collect these badges as proof of victory before competing in the final challenge for that region."

"Region?"

"From what we gathered, I think the closest analogue would be various nations on Earth," Sam put in. "I only got a brief look at a global map, but based on approximate size, the equivalent of 'regions' in our world would be Europe, Russia, Africa, America, Hawaii… things like that…"

She paused for a moment and looked at General Hammond in surprise. "And Ash is competing against the head of the Orange Island League already? I knew it was small, but I didn't think it was _that_ small…"

"Tracey Sketchit informed me that the Orange League only requires four badges to be claimed to challenge the final gym leader, and Ash Ketchum already possessed three when we met him," Teal'c put in.

"Just four?" Jack noted, before he shrugged. "Eh, seems a bit small to me, but to each his own… so what was with the call?"

"Seeing as Mr Ketchum's challenge will take place next day on their planet, and is only a couple of hours away from Fire Island with access to a suitably fast boat, the young woman thought that you might be interested in seeing such a competition for yourselves to get a better feel for what their world is like outside of the unique circumstances of your previous visit," General Hammond explained.

"Huh," Jack said, before glancing over at the rest of his team. "Well… could be interesting, right?"

"Indeed," Teal'c observed. "It would be most illuminating to see how Pokemon compete against each other in a more comparatively leisurely situation."

"And I can sign it off as a cultural observation mission, so you won't be required to submit any paperwork regarding the creatures' abilities as… in other areas," Hammond observed, the slight tension in his shoulders the only hint of his discomfort at the grey area the team had found themselves in regarding this particular planet. The general had agreed with SG-1's decision to limit knowledge of Pokemon back on Earth to avoid the creatures being forcibly taken from their home planet to be used as weapons in a war they would have never fought in otherwise, but that still put the general in a delicate position when submitting his reports to his superiors. The Ancient laboratory on the planet had turned up a few interesting details about the Ancients' research in genetic engineering, and Sam quickly agreed to come back with more information about the science team's latest discoveries after Ash's match had concluded, but everyone knew they were walking a fine line right now, justifying their continued presence on a planet that was far more fascinating than they were willing to tell anyone else.

Still, if there was ever a clear reason why everyone at the SGC was proud to serve under General George Hammond, it was the way he'd easily accepted the situation once they'd explained it to him. No matter how useful Pokemon might be in the field as a potential asset, the way Ash and Misty had interacted with Pikachu and Togepi respectively made it clear that they weren't just dumb animals (nobody had bothered to discuss Meowth as an example when they didn't know he was able to talk in the first place),

In any case, as SG-1 prepared for the latest trip through the Stargate, for once wearing more casual attire rather than the traditional BDUs or the less common dress uniforms (albeit with a few concealed weapons in case of an unexpected problem), Jack had to agree with the general's assessment; this little 'mission' was just what they needed after what their last one had nearly done to Daniel's mind.

* * *

After they arrived on Fire Island, exchanging a few brief words with the research team before joining Melody on her boat, the subsequent trip to Pummelo Stadium had actually been a fairly straightforward one, and Jack didn't say that often for most means of transport he encountered through the Stargate. He'd only had a brief glimpse of Melody's old boat during their last trip to this world before it took a beating when it was caught in that whirlpool thing Lugia had created, but the new version looked fairly similar, and it was still fast enough to get SG-1 to the next island in a relatively few hours. Sam and Daniel had been able to confirm that research on the information in the island's Ancient database was going well, but there hadn't been time to discuss that in depth if they were going to make it to Ash's match, so the scientists had agreed to leave that alone until after the match.  
  
As they approached the main island, even Jack had to admit that he liked the look of this place. Like with what he'd glimpsed of Shamouti from the initial aerial probe, this island gave every appearance of a tropical paradise, with several two- or three-storey houses laid out across the coastline. Unlike Shamouti, however, this island included a fair-sized hill behind the initial village, which was topped by a large stadium that reminded Jack of what he'd seen of the Colosseum when watching a few films set in the Roman Empire, apart from a few triangular shapes at the top that made him think of spotlights.  
  
"Pummelo Stadium," Melody said as she drew the boat towards the coastline, noticing Jack's gaze. "It's where Drake faces challengers for the Orange Island Winner's Trophy."  
  
"And that is where Ash Ketchum will battle Drake this morning?" Teal'c asked.  
  
"Exactly," Melody nodded. "It was a bit last-minute, but since most of these challenges are fairly short notice anyway I was able to ensure a few seats for us by explaining that you were friends of the challenger. The Orange League doesn't have a big enough network to let everyone know what Pokemon Ash would likely have on him if they hadn't met him already, so once I listed the six he had when he was on Shamouti, that was enough proof for the judges that we already knew him."  
  
"Makes sense," Jack nodded at the girl as the boat approached the port. "So how long have we got until the big match?"  
  
"It's still a couple of hours before everything kicks off, but you should use that time to get good seats; tickets aren't specifically allocated, so you want to get something far enough from the centre of the stadium that you can see everything but not so far that you miss the fine details," Melody explained. "I didn't have time to let Ash know you were going to be here-"  
  
"Don't."  
  
"Don't?" Melody looked at Jack in surprise.  
  
"Kids can get… intimidated when they're doing stuff like this in front of friends; I don't want to make the kid feel like he _has_ to win just because he knows we came all this way to see him," Jack explained as the boat came to a halt. "We'll let him know we're here after the match; right now, just let him do his thing."  
  
"Good point," Melody nodded, indicating the stadium ahead of them. "Well, let's go."


	15. Hello Pummello

Settling into their seats in Pummelo Stadium, SG-1 had to admit to being impressed at the design. It was a surprisingly interesting blend of an old-style gladiator arena and a more modern sports arena, vast electric lights and display screens set up around the edge of the arena even as the centre of the stadium looked like sports fields all over Earth.

"Are these places often like this?" Daniel asked Melody. "These arenas, I mean?"

"The size varies, but the basic design is fairly standard for Pokemon League contests," Melody nodded. "I mean, I've only seen other contests on TV, but it's enough to give you a good idea of the scope."

"Neat," Jack said, before a voice suddenly filled the stadium.

" _Welcome, Pokemon fans_!" the voice said. " _Pummelo Stadium is pulsing with excitement as we get set for the first Pokemon Orange League competition event of the season! Entering the stadium is Drake, the leader of the Orange Crew and the undefeated Pummelo Island Gym Leader_!"

Looking down at the central stage, SG-1 could just see the figure in question. It was hard to clearly see a single man at this distance, but the man was wearing a sleeveless vest and dark trousers, possessing a significant build and height to the point where Jack wouldn't be surprised if he was a match for Teal'c.

" _Opposing him_ ," the announcer continued, " _Ash Ketchum from Pallet Town, who hopes today to break Drake's winning streak and earn for himself the coveted Winner's Trophy and a permanent place in the Orange League Hall of Fame_."

As the announcer spoke, SG-1 saw the familiar forms of Ash, Misty and Tracey entering the stadium from the opposite side of the field, Pikachu walking alongside him while Misty carried Togepi in her arms. The two met in the middle of the stadium, where they exchanged a handshake and briefly spoke, their manner appearing friendly even if SG-1 couldn't hear any of the conversation at this distance.

"Is that normal?" Daniel asked Melody.

"What; the pre-match conversation?" the girl asked. "It varies; some trainers can have a more antagonistic dynamic depending on all kinds of things, whether just because they don't get along personally or maybe even because they disagree on how to raise their Pokemon…"

"Is that the referee?" Sam asked, indicating a man in an orange shirt who was talking to Ash and Drake.

"Basically, yeah," Melody nodded. "He's probably explaining the rules to Ash."

"What rules?" Jack asked.

"It's been a while since we had this kind of contest, but the rules have always been the same from what I remember," Melody explained. "It's a full six-on-six match, with only the challenger permitted to change his Pokemon while Drake has to stick with his choice until it faints. After either side has lost three Pokemon, there will then be a 'field change' where the field changes to a different type of battlefield to make the challenge more interesting."

"The battlefield changes?" Sam asked, just as the straightforward arena in the middle of the current plain battlefield literally opened up, allowing a rock-studded field with a small pool of water in the middle of it to ascend up to the middle of the stadium in its place.

" _The battle will begin on a rock and water field_ ," the announcer continued, " _and now we'll see which Pokemon these trainers choose, an important decision which could give us an idea of the strategy these opponents are planning_."

With the field established, Ash and Drake took up their positions in podiums on either side of the field, followed by Drake tossing a Poke Ball into the field to reveal a strange pink blob-like Pokemon.

" _Orange Crew Leader Drake has made Ditto his first choice_ ," the announcer said, as an image of the blob appeared on a large electronic board above the stadium, displaying Ash and Drake's faces on either side of the board along with twelve blank spaces, one of which depicted Ditto. " _Transform is Ditto's one and only technique, but this Pokemon turns its opponents' strengths into its own, which can be devastating_!"

"Transform?" Sam looked at Melody curiously as the announcer wondered which Pokemon Ash would choose to counter it. "Does that mean-?"

"Ditto can turn into other Pokemon?" Melody nodded. "Bingo."

" _The challenger has chosen Pikachu_ ," the announcer continued as Ash's small yellow starter ran onto the field, " _an electric Pokemon that looks charged up and ready for battle_!"

With that statement made, Ditto glowed white for a moment and then transformed into a duplicate of Pikachu, only for Ash's Pokemon to fire a massive electric blast at its new copy.

" _And it's a high-flying, high-voltage Thunder attack from Pikachu, but Ditto's taking every jolt and every volt_!" the announcer said, before the attack came to an end, Jack barely registering the announcer's next words before Drake ordered Ditto to counter with another Thunder. " _Now Ditto's Thundering Pikachu, but Pikachu proves it can take the heat_!"

"Fascinating," Sam said, as the two 'mice' locked their electric attacks against each other, energy crackling in the air as the lightning fought against each other.

" _This pair of Pokemon are pouring on the power_!" the announcer said. " _Something's gotta give_!"

Something finally gave as the rock beneath Pikachu and Ditto, Jack's full attention on the two small yellow figures as they leapt across and around the falling rocks. The one he was fairly sure was originally the pink blob seemed to cope with the shift relatively easily, but Ash's Pikachu had a greater problem with this attack, hitting the ground with some serious bruises on its fur.

" _Well, fans, it seems that the Orange Crew leader may have already won this round_!" the announcer said, as the Ditto-Pikachu looked smugly at its opponent. " _Choosing Ditto is a strategy we've seen Drake win with before; some challengers never get past this terrific transformer_!"

"Is this guy allowed to be that… biased?" Sam looked uncertainly at Melody.

"He's just stating the facts," Melody said defensively. "Keep in mind that these people are more likely to be fans of Drake than Ash; the announcer's just playing to the crowd overall."

" _After facing Ditto, previous challengers have lost their cool, seeing all their own Pokemon's hard-earned attacks and abilities thrown right back at them_!" the announcer continued as Pikachu got back to its feet, Ash talking briefly with Misty and Tracey even as his attention remained focused on the battlefield. " _Many trainers tend to make major errors against Ditto, errors that ultimately cost them the winner's trophy_!"

"An interesting means of combat, certainly," Teal'c said. "I lost many matches against Master Bra'tac when I was training under him for a similar reason."

" _The challenger's trying a different attack_ ," the announcer said as Ditto began to leap around the field to evade Pikachu's latest attacks, " _but Ditto dodges Pikachu's Thunderbolts and keeps on coming_!"

"Yeah, this is _not_ going well…" Jack mused, as Pikachu somehow absorbed most of the latest attack via its tail before mounting a speedy counter-attack against its double. For a moment, the two mice were zooming around the field, forcing Jack to concentrate to keep track of which yellow blur he was meant to be rooting for right now. After a few moments of that, both fell to the ground, followed by one of the mice getting up and responding to Ash's subsequent order for another Thunderbolt attack, followed sharply by striking its opponent with an electrically-charged tail.

"How did that work?" Jack looked at Sam and Daniel in surprise. "I mean, if that pink thing was _exactly_ copying the yellow mouse…"

"But it doesn't," Daniel said, eyes widening in realisation. "I read this when looking into information on Pokemon; Ditto changes its type and its moves when it transforms, but it can't change its physical condition."

"Its condition?" Jack repeated.

"It can't change how fast or strong it is compared to the original," Daniel clarified. "I'm guessing that in this case, Ash had the idea that he could wear it down because Pikachu would be fitter."

"Makes… sense," Jack nodded, looking back at the field as Drake returned Ditto to its ball, followed by Drake sending out a vast creature that looked like a rocky snake.

" _For his second Pokemon, Drake has chosen Onix, a rock-type that's strong against electric attacks_!" the announcer said. "Let's see how Ketchum responds!"

"Strong against Electrc attacks?" Jack asked.

"The Pokedex mentioned something about that," Daniel put in, as Ash called Pikachu back to him. "Apparently there are these Pokemon known as 'Ground-types' that are completely immune to electrical attacks…"

Jack's attention was drawn back to the battlefield as Ash sent out a familiar small blue turtle, which seemed to be staring defiantly up at its massive opponent.

" _An easy choice for Ash as he selects water-type Squirtle to go up against the Onix! Judging by type, Squirtle has the advantage, but Onix is a rock-solid battler_!"

"At least he's being a bit more balanced in his commentary," Jack noted, as Squirtle fired a blast of water at its opponent only for the stony serpent to dive underground.

" _In a lightning show of speed, Onix has slithered away from Squirtle's Water Gun and burrowed beneath the battlefield! And now Onix has the advantage as Squirtle awaits its reappearance_!"

"So much for him showing a fair approach," Jack mused, as Squirtle ran for the pool of water in the middle of the arena, only for Onix to erupt from the ground.

" _Onix has smashed through, stunning Squirtle and sending it flying_!" the announcer yelled, as the rocky snake followed up the last attack by wrapping its tail around Squirtle and squeezing it tightly. For a moment all four members of SG-1 watched anxiously as Squirtle was squeezed by Onix, the strain somehow apparent even as Squirtle withdrew into its shell, but the mood of the situation suddenly shifted as water burst from the 'holes' in Squirtle's shell.

" _Squirtle's fighting back by blasting a shocked and surprised Onix with its Hydro Pump_!" the announcer proclaimed, Onix releasing its grip on its opponent as it was sent reeling in pain from the water. Jack thought he saw Drake issue a command, but apparently Onix didn't hear its trainer's order.

" _This is amazing_!" the announcer continued. " _Squirtle's Hydro Pump is pouring the water on Onix, and the stone snake is stopped in its tracks_!"

As Ash issued another order, Squirtle charged towards Onix, the top of its head glowing before it struck its opponent in the side of its head. On top of the sudden deluge, that last attack appeared to be too much for Onix, the rock snake falling to the ground as the announcer identified the last attack as a Skull Bash. There a moment's silence as the referee assessed the fallen combatant, before he raised the green flag once again.

" _Fans, that is the second consecutive defeat for Drake_!" the announcer said as Drake recalled Onix. Glancing around, Jack smiled slightly as he heard some of the observers whispering amongst themselves over Ash's success rate in the battle so far, only for the conversation to die off as Drake sent out a strange purple creature with short arms and wicked-looking red eyes.

" _Drake has chosen the Ghost Pokemon Gengar_!" the announcer said.

"Ghosts?" Jack repeated, before he looked at Daniel. "You mean those things you mentioned last time we were here?"

"I guess so," Daniel nodded, looking uncertainly at Ash's new opponent as Ash recalled Squirtle. "This could be tricky; like Hestia said, ghost Pokemon don't have a lot of weaknesses…"

The question was answered as Ash sent out his next choice. Unlike what they'd seen of Ash's team so far, this one was completely unfamiliar to Jack, as well as looking remarkably normal compared to the Pokemon he'd seen so far; if it weren't for the extra two tails he could probably think it was nothing more than a regular bull.

" _An unusual choice, but Ketchum may have a secret strategy; the young challenger is already two-for-two_!" the announcer explained.

"Unusual choice?" Jack looked at Melody. "How's it an unusual choice?"

"Tauros is… well, it's just a Normal-type Pokemon," Melody explained, looking uncertainly at the bull. "It's tough, and it might know a few moves that could damage Gengar, but there's no way to know if they'd do _enough_ damage…"

" _This is unbelievable_!" the announcer said, as the bull-thing stamped its feet and the entire stadium seemed to shake. " _Tauros is really shaking things up out there and Gengar's getting rattled_!"

"What in the world…?" Sam said, looking at the field in surprise as a strange beam of white light seemed to emerge from Tauros's hoof and head straight towards Gengar, only for the ghost to jump into the air before it could strike.

" _Gengar springs to safety and escapes the Fissure attack_!" the announcer confirmed, as Tauros looked anxiously up at its opponent. " _Now that Gengar takes to the sky, ground attacks are useless and Tauros is in trouble_!"

Drake issued a command that Jack couldn't hear, but it prompted Gengar's eyes to glow blue while its purple body turned into a strange shade of red. Whatever it was doing, its body returned to normal after a moment, but then Tauros roared and started charging into the surrounding rocks.

" _That Confuse Ray is working and Tauros is running wild_!" the announcer said.

"Confuse Ray?" Sam looked at Daniel as Ash returned Tauros.

"It's a brief attack, and apparently just being recalled will let a Pokemon shake off its effects, but it apparently does exactly what it says," Daniel explained. "If Ash had left Tauros out, it might have been able to damage Gengar, but it's equally likely that it would have kept on hitting itself while taking damage from Gengar…"

" _Ketchum is going with Lapras_!" the announcer said, as the large blue creature appeared in the pool in the middle of the field.

"Good choice or bad choice?" Jack looked at Daniel and Melody.

"Mixed, really," Daniel said uncertainly. "From what I read in his Pokedex, Lapras has a range of moves that might affect Gengar, but at the same time Ash hasn't used Lapras for much more than transportation…"

"Well, he seems to be using the battlefield to his advantage, anyway," Sam noted, as Lapras dived underwater to escape the latest attack from the opposing ghost. The aquatic creature soon emerged from the water to shoot a burst of liquid at Gengar, which sent it staggering back for a moment. Drake issued an order and strange black energy burst from Gengar's eyes, just as Ash issued a command to Lapras that prompted it to fire a burst of white energy from its mouth that clashed with Gengar's own attack. As everyone in the stadium watched, the two attacks formed a massive ball of energy in between the two Pokemon, until there was a strange explosion of energy that filled the arena with smoke…


	16. Enter the Dragonite

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I took a few more liberties with this battle scene, but at least one bit of dialogue during the Tauros-VS-Venusaur battle didn't make sense in the original episode, so I felt it would be simpler to make a few extra changes

" _The smoke still hasn't cleared from those two tremendous attacks_ ," the announcer said, the stadium still filled with smoke from that prior attack, " _but in a moment, we'll see who the winner is_."

"Is this normal?" Teal'c looked curiously at Melody.

"It… well, attacks colliding like that _can_ happen, but the odds against it…" Melody shrugged helplessly as a response, before the smoke finally cleared, revealing that Lapras and Gengar were both lying on the ground, Lapras having been apparently blown out of the pool by the force of the latest blast.

"They _both_ got knocked out from that?" Jack looked at the field in surprise as the referee declared a draw. "Wasn't expecting that."

"It's not common, but it happens," Melody noted, as Ash and Drake recalled their Pokemon.

" _Well, Ash may not have won that round, but this is the first time a challenger has knocked out three of the champion's Pokemon in a row_ ," the announcer said, as Ash moved away from the field to do some stretches alongside Misty and Tracey. " _In the Winner's Trophy competition, whenever three of either trainer's Pokemon are defeated the field is changed. Now both these trainers will have to adapt to come up with brand new strategies_."

"A sandy field?" Sam looked at Melody in surprise as the rock and water field lowered away to reveal a sand-covered field. "Would that be a problem? I mean, assuming it's not quicksand, it doesn't seem like much of a challenging battlefield…"

"Give it time," Melody smiled, as Ash and Drake moved back into position while the announcer described the field, followed by Drake throwing another ball to reveal a large blue dinosaur-like creature with a large blooming flower on its back.

" _Drake's picked Venusaur, who's won many a battle here in the past_ ," the announcer said.

"Venusaur?" Jack glanced at Melody. "Any relation to Bulbasaur?"

"Its final evolved form," Melody confirmed, as Ash sent out Tauros once again, the bull looking rested and clear-headed as it paced its hooves against the ground.

" _Tauros again leads off with a frightening Fissure attack_ ," the announcer said, as Tauros stirred up a massive sand cloud when its feet struck, only for the cloud to fade to reveal the bull's front legs were now stuck in the ground. " _But this time the Fissure fizzled out! The sandy surface sucked up the shock and Ketchum's got himself one stuck steed_!"

For a moment, the bull simply struggled against its new 'captivity' while Venusaur watched, but then Drake issued a command and a series of vines emerged from the plant to strike Tauros. Jack was about to yell in protest when a couple of vines dislodged Tauros from the sand, prompting Ash to issue a new order.

" _It looks like that Vine Whip attack actually got Tauros unstuck from the sand, and now the whole stadium's shaking as Tauros stampedes straight for Venusaur_!" the announcer yelled, Tauros charging towards its opponent as the plant on Venusaur's back began to glow.

"That's… not good, right?" Jack glanced at Daniel and Melody.

"If I remember the Pokedex's information correctly, it suggests that Venusaur's about to use Solar Beam, which is the most powerful Grass-type move there is, so yeah, not good," Daniel confirmed, as Tauros and Venusaur met literally head-on.

For a moment the confrontation went nowhere, as Tauros's hooves failed to find purchase on the sand beneath it, but the stalemate ended as Tauros flipped Venusaur into the air. As SG-1 watched in awe, Venusaur turned around mid-air to fire the Solar Beam at Tauros, but after the dust faded, Tauros swiftly got back to its feet and charged towards Venusaur again. Vine Whips flew towards Tauros as it charged, the bull evading some vines and powering through those that managed to hit home, finally making contact with its opponent.

" _Tauros tears right through Venusaur's Vine Whip_!" the announcer affirmed. " _The Take Down attack hits home and Venusaur goes flying_!"

As Venusaur hit the ground, it wasn't hard to see that the attack had taken the large blue plant-thing out of the fight, even ebfore the referee waved a flag to confirm that Venusaur was out of the picture.

" _You heard it, fans_!" the announcer said, as Drake recalled Venusaur. " _The challenger has now defeated four of the champion's six Pokemon_!"

With that statement, Drake sent out his fifth choice, this Pokemon putting SG-1 in mind of a yellow ogre with lightning-like stripes.

" _The atmosphere here is charged, as Electabuzz, Drake's fifth Pokemon, prepares to take on Tauros! The question is, will Ash stick with the beefy battler or is Tauros too tuckered to unplug Electabuzz_?"

That question was swiftly answered as Ash recalled Tauros and sent out the more familiar small form of Bulbasaur, the sight providing a sharp contrast between the previously-battling Venusaur and its earlier form.

"And that becomes the big guy?" Jack looked at Melody in surprise.

"Bulbasaur has to evolve into Ivysaur before it can become Venusaur, but you're basically right, yeah," Melody confirmed.

"Incredible," Sam said, looking thoughtfully at the two fighters as Bulbasaur shook off a Thundershock attack and countered by sending out a mass of razor-sharp leaves. "The energy needed for Bulbasaur to grow that large…"

Her moment of thought was interrupted when Electabuzz's counter-attack of a Thunderbolt cut Bulbasaur's attack off, followed by delivering a powerful electrically-charged punch that knocked the Grass Pokemon to the ground.

" _Electabuzz short-circuits the bulb_!" the announcer said, as Ash recalled his second fallen Pokemon. " _This high-level electric type's defeat of a grass type has the crowd buzzing; now the heat is on for challenger Ash Ketchum_!"

As though the comment about heat had been a cue, Ash tossed out his next Pokemon, revealing the imposing form of a familiar large orange dragon. For a moment, Jack hoped that this would be a positive turn of events, but the first stage of attack appeared to be ineffective as Electabuzz dodged Charizard's Flamethrower to deliver a Thunderpunch.

" _Electabuzz connects first with a devastating Thunderpunch_!" the announcer said, followed by Electabuzz delivering a powerful Thunder attack. " _Charizard is cooling off quick as the champion grabs the early advantage! Ketchum better come up with something fast or I hope he likes his Charizard extra crispy_!"

"OK, could this guy stop sounding _that_ biased and try and be a bit more neutral?" Jack asked. "I mean, I get that Drake's the favourite, but we're talking about living beings getting hit with a mass of electricity…"

"Sir, keep in mind that everything we've found suggests that Pokemon can take far more punishment than we would normally expect from living creatures," Sam pointed out, as Charizard generated a fiery tornado that swirled around the two fighters.

" _A_ _scorching response from Charizard, who grounds Electabuzz with a searing counter-attack_!" the announcer said, followed by Charizard grabbing Electabuzz and taking it up into the sky just as Drake issued an order. " _Charizard stops the Thunderbolt attack before it gets started! Now Charizard has got Electabuzz in a clincher, winding up for a super Seismic Toss_!"

"Impressive," Teal'c said, watching the sky as Charizard spun in the air before hurtling towards the stadium, releasing Electabuzz to hit the ground with a powerful collision. As Charizard landed above its opponent, it launched a powerful flamethrower into the air as though signifying its victory, leaving Drake to recall his fifth fallen Pokemon.

" _Now challenger Ash Ketchum is only one victory away from that Winner's Trophy_!" the announcer said, as Drake reached up to enlarge a Poke Ball hanging around his neck. " _But as we've seen him do before, Drake has saved the best for last_!"

With those words, Drake tossed the ball from his neck into the field, revealing another large orange dragon-like creature. It was a lighter shade of orange than Charizard, with smaller wings and a smoother snout as well as being noticeably bulkier, but somehow it gave a clear impression of power despite those differences.

" _Drake's last Pokemon, the legendary Dragonite_!" the announcer said. " _If Dragonite goes down, this battle is over_!"

"Well, I suppose that's more balanced…" Jack said, as Charizard and Dragonite fired fire and water at each other respectively.

" _Dragonite not only dowses Charizard's attack, but it may be dampening Ketchum's hopes for the Winner's Trophy_!" the announcer said, quashing Jack's hopes that he'd be a balanced judge as Charizard flew up to evade a beam of white energy from Dragonite. " _Charizard dodges Dragonite's Ice Beam with an impressive show of air force_!"

Jack wanted to give the man some kind of credit for acknowledging Charizard's skill in that area, but when Dragonite flew up, it was hard to care about that kind of issue when witnessing something that bulky fly with the kind of speed he was used to seeing demonstrated by a machine rather than a living being. For a moment, the two exchanged attacks, Charizard shooting fiery blasts while Dragonite countered with a white beam of energy that resembled Lapras's earlier attacks, but both dragons evaded the other's attacks. For a moment, Charizard got in close to attack its opponent, but Dragonite slipped around and grabbed Charizard by the throat, throwing Ash's dragon to the ground.

" _Damn_ ," Jack said, looking at Charizard's battered and bruised shape as it got back to its feet, the announcer complimenting its fighting spirit as Dragonite landed opposite it. "That is one tough dragon…"

"Indeed," Teal'c nodded, glancing over at Dragonite. "It is unfortunate for Ash Ketchum that he faces an equally powerful adversary at this time."

"Mmm?" Daniel looked at Teal'c in surprise.

"I have faith in Ash Ketchum's personal strength of will, and the power of his Pokemon warriors, but I question whether that will be enough against such a formidable foe as Drake when Ash Ketchum is so young," Teal'c explained, as Charizard and Dragonite launched simultaneous fireballs at each other, causing a massive fireball that sent both Pokemon flying.

" _Both Dragon Rage attacks hit home, and both Pokemon appear to be shaken_!" the announcer said, as the dust faded to reveal the two dragons panting as they stared at each other. " _This match could be over at any moment_!"

The announcer's statement was proven correct when Charizard fell backwards, leaving Dragonite breathing heavily even as it remained on its feet on the other side of the field.

" _Charizard is down and out_!" the announcer affirmed as Ash recalled the dragon. " _That Dragon Rage drained both Pokemon but Dragonite manages to hold on_!"

"Damn…" Jack winced as he watched SG-1's young friend recall the large orange dragon. " _That's_ gonna hurt his chances…"

"Do not underestimate Ash Ketchum, O'Neill," Teal'c noted as Ash sent out Squirtle. "We have already witnessed that he is stronger than his age would suggest, and it is not unreasonable to assume that the same applies to his Pokemon."

"Still not keen on the odds here," Jack pointed out, as Squirtle's attempt to apparently launch another 'Water Wheel' (or whatever that attack was) were interrupted as Dragonite hit the centre of its shell with a quick blast of water. "He's got three Pokemon that already took a beating up against the dragon that made this guy's reputation, and he's already lost his biggest powerhouse; there's no _way_ this is going to be easy…"

Watching as Squirtle took a powerful electric attack fired from Dragonite's horn/antenna things, Jack winced as the announcer continued to praise Dragonite's assault on Ash's team, even as Squirtle emerged from its shell after the attack, shaky but still standing. Dragonite flew up and began to charge down towards Squirtle, belly-first as though using its entire body as a weapon, but the small blue turtle counter-attacked with a rapid series of large bubbles that struck Dragonite in the chest. The dragon clearly noticed the attack, turning its head and wincing at the impact, but it clearly didn't do much damage, Dragonite just adjusting its descent to land on its feet and spin around to strike Squirtle with its tail.

" _Once again, Dragonite proves what a brawny battler it is_!" the announcer confirmed, as Squirtle hit the ground, now clearly unconscious, leaving Ash to recall his fourth fallen Pokemon in this battle. " _Despite Squirtle's Bubblebeam attack it digs in and strikes back! Now the challenger has_ _just two Pokemon remaining, and this should be- hey, wait! What's that up there_?"

Looking up, Jack was as surprised as the announcer to see a large hot air balloon in a form that reminded him of that talking cat-thing he'd witnessed with 'Jessie and James' during the initial confrontation on Hestia's ship, hovering above the stadium and dropping a net down to cover Dragonite.

"Is that not the two we encountered on Hestia's ship?" Teal'c asked, looking at the new arrival with the raised eyebrows that were as close as he'd ever come to expressing surprise.

"Yeah," Melody nodded. "I asked about them after you'd left; they're members of Team Rocket."

"Oh, so _that's_ what the 'R' stood for," Daniel said, watching the battlefield uncertainly as the two in the balloon seemed to be saying something he couldn't make out. "What does that team do?"

"Mostly they try to steal Pokemon from other trainers, but according to Ash those two have made a point of focusing on trying to steal his Pikachu," Melody said. "Apparently they consider it a rare example of its breed or something like that; they only helped him during your last visit because they'd all lose out if the world was destroyed."

"Huh," Jack said, thinking on it for a moment before he shrugged. "Puts them slightly above the Goa'uld for sanity, anyway."

"When they let themselves get into situations like _that_?" Daniel asked, indicating the battlefield as Dragonite broke the net around it just by opening its wings. Even as SG-1 watched, the dragon flew upwards once again, flying straight through the balloon and sending it flying upwards into the air, the trio in the basket screaming as they vanished into the distance.

" _Sorry about that interruption, folks_ ," the announcer said, surprisingly nonchalant despite the strange events that had just taken place. " _Now let's get back to the battle_!"

Clearly putting the issue of the recent attack aside, Ash chose Tauros once again, the bull charging towards Dragonite as the dragon flew upwards before diving back down on its opponent. For a moment, SG-1 could only stare in shock as dust and sand erupted around the two as Dragonite hit Tauros, but the sand soon faded to reveal that Dragonite was now on its back with Tauros's horns up against it.

"It took a hit like that?" Jack looked at the battlefield in surprise.

"The sand could have cushioned the worst of the impact, sir," Sam pointed out. "Assuming Tauros is strong enough and Dragonite was worn out enough from its fight with Charizard, it's not impossible…"

As though realising how Tauros had escaped that last attack, Drake's next command prompted Dragonite to launch a new electrical blast against Tauros. The physical attack might have been of limited effect, but this particular attack was clearly too much for the battered bull to take, as it collapsed to the ground and was declared unable to battle.

" _Tauros was primed for victory, but even its stubborn brand of battling wasn't good enough to make the grade_ ," the announcer reported, as Ash recalled his fallen Tauros. " _Dragonite's taken out three of Ketchum's Pokemon in a row and now both trainers are down to their last Pokemon_."

"A mouse versus a dragon," Jack said, as Pikachu ran past Ash back onto the field. "This is gonna suck…"

"I would not be so hasty to assume the worst, O'Neill," Teal'c noted, as Pikachu started off by rapidly running around the field, only for a flick of Dragonite's tail to send the mouse Pokemon flying backwards once more. "Of course, this is still a dangerous situation."

" _Drake calls for Dragonite's most powerful attack_!" the announcer proclaimed, Pikachu looking dazed on the ground while golden energy gathered in Dragonite's mouth. " _Does Pikachu have the energy to escape Hyper Beam_?"

"Hyper Beam?" Jack glanced over at Daniel and Melody.

"Apparently one of the most powerful attacks any Pokemon can learn," Daniel said, his voice low as the Hyper Beam launched from Dragonite's mouth to strike the ground around Pikachu, stirring up another massive cloud of dust.

"Oh no…" Sam said, wincing at the image of that Hyper Beam striking Pikachu, only for her eyes to widen in surprise as a distinctive yellow figure leapt up from out of the cloud.

" _Unbelievable_!" the announcer said as Pikachu 'flew' through the air while Dragonite panted in fatigue. " _Pikachu used its tail as a springboard to escape the Hyper Beam! Pikachu bounces back, but Dragonite doesn't look very bouncy_!"

"Yes," Jack grinned, clenching his fist in pride as Pikachu landed on Dragonite's head, clutching onto the dragon's antenna-like things as the dragon tried to shake it off, the mouse hanging on as the tired dragon tried to rub its head against the ground. Finally, Ash yelled a command to Pikachu, and Pikachu launched an electrical attack that seemed to fill the entire stadium with energy.

" _Pikachu lights into Dragonite with a tremendous Thunder attack_!" the announcer proclaimed, the lightning-burst fading as Dragonite finally shook Pikachu off. As the mouse got back onto its feet, Pikachu and Dragonite stared at each other for a few moments, each Pokemon visibly panting from exhaustion, until Dragonite collapsed to the ground, prompting the referee to raise one flag to declare the battle over.

" _ **The challenger wins the match**_!" the announcer said, as the display screen shifted from showing Ash and Drake's Pokemon to just displaying Ash's face with his six Pokemon underneath him. " _The challenger wins the match! The challenger wins the match_!"

" _Yes_!" Jack grinned, turning to exchange high-fives with the rest of SG-1 as Ash ran down to the battlefield to pick up the now-exhausted Pikachu while Drake recalled Dragonite. "He _won_!"

"That was… _wow_ ," Sam said, her usually scientific mind lost for a better response after witnessing such an unexpected victory.

"Is there any way for us to get down to talk to Ash Ketchum after his victory?" Teal'c looked over at Melody.

"Well, there might be a couple of places we can get down to the battlefield to talk to him directly…" Melody said, quickly looking around the stadium before she led the way down a nearby flight of stairs. A few moments later, they reached the bottom floor of the stadium, Melody leading them through a few corridors before they reached a room where Ash was handing his five Poke Balls and Pikachu over a counter to a young red-haired woman wearing a nurse's uniform.

"I'm sorry-" a man in a suit began as he turned to address the new arrivals.

"It's OK; we're friends of the new champ," Jack said, just as Ash turned around to look at the new arrivals.

"Melody?" he began, just pleasantly surprised before he took in her company and his eyes widened incredulously. "Jack, Sam, Daniel, Teal'c? What are you all doing here?"

"We were informed of your challenge and decided that we wished to witness you battle in a purely competitive environment, Ash Ketchum," Teal'c nodded at the young man. "I must confirm that we were all most impressed with your efforts."

"Uh… thanks," Ash nodded, clearly lost for how to react to this news. "I mean, you came all this way for me?"

"Like Teal'c said, we wanted to see how things go here when you're not in the middle of a fight for the fate of the planet," Jack smiled, just as the door opened and Misty and Tracey entered.

"Sorry we- Melody? Colonel O'Neill?" Misty began, looking between Melody and SG-1 in surprise. "What are you doing here?"

"I heard about Ash's upcoming battle against Drake and sent a message through the… Stargate… in case they wanted to see it," Melody explained.

"And we're very glad we did," Daniel nodded. "It's one thing to see what happens when you're dealing with a threat like Hestia, but it's good to see how you cope when dealing with a more conventional situation."

"As 'conventional' as defeating the undefeated Orange League champion can be," Tracey smiled in approval at Ash before he looked over at SG-1. "As long as you're here, would you care to join us as Ash receives the trophy?"

"Why not?" Jack smiled. "Not every day you're friends with a big-league celebrity."

There was no way to know if SG-1 themselves would come back to this planet any time soon, with the threat posed by Anubis growing ever more potent and the upcoming election guaranteeing a new administration, but now that they were here, there was nothing wrong with enjoying the experience of being friends with a local celebrity.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No specific plans to take this series further, as the location of the Stargate limits the possibilities for SG-1 to be invited to any of Ash's future championship matches and SG-1's plans to keep this planet's existence secret would limit the likelihood of the SGC using Pokemon against the Ori or the Wraith, but never rule out the possibility of another storyline if I'm given the right inspiration.
> 
> In any case, hope you've enjoyed this particular storyline.


End file.
